I've had a pretty eventful week in terms of seeing dance. I bought tickets to see ODC/Dance at the Joyce and a pair of tickets at BAM to see Bangarra's Awakenings and Steve Reich evening. Here are my thoughts.
ODC/Dance is a San Francisco-based contemporary dance company who are quite influential in their local dance scene. They have their own school and theater; they do a lot of outreach and art-in-education programs; they pay and insure their dancers; they're mission is simple, but realistic. They're the Company to be in if you're a dancer in San Fran. With all that said and after reading the dancer's bios, I thought I would be in for a real treat.
In as few words as possible: I was completely unimpressed. Unimpressed with the dancing. Unimpressed with the choreography. Unimpressed with the costumes, lighting, and staging. While I was impressed by a few of the dancers (particularly Daniel Santos), I felt that the whole evening was predictable, mediocre, amateurish, boring.
I love to watch dance that's based in the roots of a particular culture and incorporates modern and contemporary styles to create something newer. I saw Bangarra Dance Theater at BAM this week and really enjoyed it. They performed their newest work, Awakenings, stories of rites of passage in ancient Aboriginal culture. The Company is made up entirely of Aboriginal/mixed Aboriginal dancers.
I was struck by how seamless the movement felt and how honest and sincere the performers were. I admit some of the choreography wasn't awesome, but the commitment the dancers gave to the movement drew me in. I was especially floored by the lighting and the set.
I was first introduced to the music of Steve Reich while studying dance at CalArts. It once occurred to me that his was Music for Intellectuals and it made me feel good to be truly into it; that I could find the soul in it. I understood it and was intrigued by it. It's very mathematical and pendulous. Rhythms are established then mixed and lost and found again. I went to see Steve Reich Evening at BAM as part of a city-wide celebration on the composer's 70th birthday.
While this wasn't the best collection of his work, I was mesmerized by the musicians. I'd never seen Reich music played live and I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect. Most of he dancing was dynamic and excited and matched Reich music wonderfully. And while a lot of the dancing was repetitive and kind of dull, I enjoyed the precision and commitment the dancers provided it. My biggest problem with the whole evening was the arrogance of the artists and the producers. Exhibit A: Poems symphonique pour cent metronomes by Gyorgy Ligeti, in which a hundred metronomes are set off onstage and slowly wind down. Further, I found it more than slightly annoying that the dancers were so casual on stage, chitchatting, removing costume bits, lackadaisical technique and I got the strange feeling several times during the evening that everyone was marking.
A more thorough, less biased review may be found here.
Next week, I return to BAM for Meeting with Bodditsavah and then to NJPAC for the Movie Music of Spike Lee. Raucous soul clapping for me and my cultureficationizing. View blog reactions
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