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Zephyr Dance presents "Smeared Surfaces"

By Sid Smith

How we see dance--as in where we sit, where we aim our eyes, what we choose to watch and from what angles we're forced to view it all--greatly affects how we interpret dance. How we receive it and what we decide to think about it.

Whether, for instance, you choose to stare unwaveringly at the feet of the dancer portraying Myrtha in "Giselle" as she glides across the floor in her legendary series of bourrees, or you opt to watch instead her floating body and that overall image, affects your emotional response to the sequence. So does your theater seat--very different images imprint on the mind when glimpsed from close up or far away, at the top of the venue's rafters.

That obvious but nevertheless profound quandary regarding the witnessing of live dance has been a major interest of Zephyr Dance and its artistic director Michelle Kranicke for several years now. It's an abiding subtext and formal topic of what the troupe calls an ever-changing movement poem entitled "Erased Dance," a series of concerts dating back years, mixing old works with new works, changing the old works while exploring the different ways that various audience members choose to perceive the concert.

This week, a new installment of the "Erased Dance" series plays Thursday through Saturday at the Holstein Park Auditorium, 2200 N. Oakley in Chicago. The umbrella title for the two pieces on the program, "Smeared Surfaces," hints at Kranicke's thoughts on this audience vantage point idea.

"The whole series has been conceived as a movement poem that could be shifted or smeared or smudged," she explained. "If you've seen the works previously, this time you might see a small facsimile of what you've seen before, but in a different order, for example. Or the audience is placed differently, and there may be new things injected that I'm exploring right now."

Thus, the repetition and evolution of individual moves and gestures--bedrock to modern dance everywhere--is further explored here in that the works themselves have changed and evolved--and so have their circumstances.

"Both works have been seen before, but never side by side," she said of the two pieces, "Shift" and "The Trace of Her Body Is Barely Visible," that make up "Smeared Surfaces." And the Holstein is a different venue than the Epiphany Church, where Zephyr performed part of "Erased Dance" earlier.

"The seating is different," Kranicke noted. "I've been exploring audience placement, the ability to see dance from both near and far, as well as giving audiences choices to look at one point of the dance while knowing they may be missing another part."

That has been accomplished by other artists elsewhere by inviting the audience to roam about a large space--Jonathan Meyer did just that earlier this season at a south side loft. "Here, they're not roving, but the seating is set up in the round," Kranicke said. "But there will be areas bisected by the dancers. And some of the movement will happen outside the circle. So, if you want to see what's going on behind you, you'll have to choose to turn around and watch, but you'll thus miss what's going on in front of you."

Kranicke readily admits performance art and art installations have been exploring these issues for years. But her take is both highly personal and infinitely subtle--she is reaching deep to touch on the most basic levels of the very definition of dance.

"I've become a bit frustrated over the years with the whole viewing experience of dance, where the audience is forced into a static area to watch a proscenium stage from one particular vantage point," she said. "Compare that to art or architecture, where you can have multiple experiences of a work, depending on how you choose to view it."

Ironically, dance adds another dimension, the fourth, to its art, which actually should multiply alternatives and possibilities, not diminish them. "One of the things I want to explore is the visceral experience of dance. It's a kinetic experience as well as a visual one. Technology today evokes the idea that we're closer to each other, and yet farther away, too. There's always some kind of device between you and others.

"You may find yourself sitting very close to the dancers, in the front row, though often we deliberately avoid that when we can. But, when we're there, right up close, we're removed from the situation where I'm a viewer and I sit apart. I observe you, but don't necessarily come near you. That's different in the front row. How often do you come that close to someone else's foot?"

There is a sly, understated tweak at audience participation here. Not the obvious, in-your-face improv theater kind, but the mere fact that, if you choose to turn your head at Zephyr's performance, to check out what's behind you, you're moving with the dancers, too.

"At one concert, we gave people numbers that assigned them to certain seats," she said. "It was interesting how some people chose to disregard the numbers so they could sit with the person or people they came with. It's a statement that sometimes they just don't want to play my game,"

"I'm not looking to anger the audience," Kranicke added. "I'm just looking to give them different perspectives and allow them to make choices."

"Smeared Surfaces" plays at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday at Holstein. For tickets: 773-489-5069 or zephyrdance.com.

 

Reviewed by Sid Smith on 11/16/2011 at 11:01 AM