Stepping off the elevator of Joffrey Tower last Saturday night for Danceworks Chicago’s Dance Chance Redux 6.0, I was handed my ticket, a program, and an index card printed with the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and asked to fill it out. Nothing more. Hmm. I could have written a novel. A mental deck of flashcard options flickered across my consciousness. I quickly catalogued and discarded all the what-ifs and could’a-beens of past whim and fancy, and, choosing brevity and pragmatism over self-indulgence, I simply wrote, “Writer and Artist,” which hardly says it all, but was general enough to cover all bases.
The purpose of this brief exercise in self-examination, as it turns out, was both specific to Liv Schaffer’s piece, “Here,” and emblematic of the whole evening. Schaffer’s semi-facetious question tapped into the audience’s enthusiasm for a 21st-century American cultural obsession: pondering the elusive self. But it did more than that. You couldn’t help but wonder, pre-performance, how other people answered that question and how our responses would be used in the one-hour concert of four new, developing works by four emerging Dance Chance choreographers. That wondering wrapped an audience of strangers into an instant community, one of Schaffer’s stated objectives, and gained immediate audience complicity in both the unspoken and spoken dialog between audience and artists.
While Schaffer’s “Here” invites the audience to dream, to consider unrealized possibilities, Danceworks’ Dance Chance program invites choreographers to imagine as well, in informal monthly performance forums that foster nascent works in a risk free, supportive environment. The bonus for choreographers of this process-centered program is an opportunity to float new ideas on a live audience and get valued critical feed-back in moderated post-performance discussions. The bonus for the audience is a sense of participation in the creative process and a more intimate understanding of how dance transmits meaning, all of which helps build audiences for dance. (Go to seechicagodance.com for details of the next Dance Chance, tomorrow, Thursday, April 23rd at the Lou Conte Dance Studio.)
Co-sponsored by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago/Lou Conte Dance Studio and The Joffrey Ballet, “Dance Chance: Redux 6.0” offers Dance Chance choreographers an opportunity to “deepen their investigation of the choreographic process” by further developing their work for a somewhat more formal, theatrically-supported performance. The Gerald Arpino Black Box Theatre offered a perfect venue, with theatrical lighting, stadium seating, and an expansive stage space.
True to the spirit of chance and audience inclusiveness, the evening began with moderator Jenai Cutcher West introducing the four choreographers and asking random audience members to draw names from a hat to determine program order. Each of the four female choreographers took a unique approach to self-discovery, with much fresh inventiveness and pleasing dancers well-grounded in the style and technical demands of each piece.
Alexis Staley’s “The Place Where We Began,” for four women and one man, drew inspiration from the poetry of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, recited in spoken voice-over. The central contrasting gestures of holding hands and separating hands conveyed the sense of union and separation, with exploration of the void in the empty hand amplifying into a spatial representation of loss. The empty hand formed itself into a lens, with dancers peering at the world and each other through encircled fingers, slicing angular lines of intersection in wrap-around partnering. Set to the gentle echo bell-tones of John Luther Adams‘ music, Staley’s sensitive investigation holds interest with good use of level change and body twists, with strong contrast between solo and unison group patterns. The spoken Zen text came across as trite, however, and unnecessary. It didn’t help that the reader’s poor delivery siphoned momentum from the work’s seriousness of purpose. Late in the piece, a mosaic of overlapping lines with different voices proved more satisfying in its abstraction and organic connection to the movement.
Solo dancer Sarah Stockman began “Here” in silence with her back to the audience in a mesmerizing improvised rhapsody in which she seemed to be inhaling and ingesting space with her entire body. She continued her process seemingly oblivious to Schaffer’s pedestrian entrance, followed by collaborating poet, Andy Karol. Schaffer addressed the audience and introduced Karol, who collected the completed index cards from the audience, presumably to incorporate into the performance, effectively engaging the audience and intensifying interest and expectations. The ensuing piece paired Karol speaking her poetry and dropping index cards as she incorporated the answers into her text, with Stockman, who shifted gears according to the suggestions of the partially-spontaneous text. As the audience recognized both artists’ use of the index card answers, an element of surprise and humor added playfulness and discovery to the mix. The blend of Karol’s poetry, delivered with just the right degree of vocal naturalism and clear dramatic intention, and Stockman’s unique voice as a dancer, made for a thoroughly organic whole that made sense as a provocative challenge to the audience, the message of the index card question being: “We forget that we should never stop answering.”
Connor Cornelius’ “My Hyphen” is a male/female duet, persuasively performed by Jesse Hoisington and the choreogrpaher. Her choice of Andy Hasenpflug’s Suite I and IV of ticking clocks, chimes, gongs, and other evocations of time proved especially effective in the portrayal of a conflicted relationship. In an initial solo, Hoisinton’s silken body shifts and elastic energy established his character’s authority and command of the space. Cornelius’ tentative gestures and submissive physical state defined an initially uneven relationship. As her movement gained strength and authority, the two connected briefly, then separated in a wild running sequence of misses and lunges, each dancer volatile, bringing the duet to a peak of emotional intensity before they abandoned their struggle, and their dancing, as he walked abruptly offstage with pedestrian neutrality, leaving her alone and abandoned. The suddenness of the ending short-changed what was a riveting climax that still has more to achieve. This piece, strong as it is with originality and a fine sense of character and relationship realized through movement, deserves a stronger ending.
The final piece, Carson Reiners’ “From Whence Unknown,” set to Leonard Cohen’s song, “Who By Fire,” suggests an apocalyptic scenario. Beautifully danced by Reiners, Dylan Roth, and Tim Bowser in identical red lamé hooded unitards, the piece suffers from an overload of intellectual constructs and thematic contradictions. It was hard to tell if the outrageous costumes and the humorous intrusion of a ringing cell phone twice during the piece were signals that this was satire, or if Leonard Cohen’s haunting lyrics, drawn from the Jewish Yom Kippur liturgy, were a sobering harbinger of death and destruction.
The post-performance conversation with the choreographers and the audience answered audience questions about choreographic process and artistic inspiration, and gave the artists overwhelming validation and encouragement. All well and good. That Danceworks is sponsoring a forum like this is a wonderful opportunity for meaningful artistic dialogue and workshopping for young choreographers, but it is essential that it not fall prey to that other 21st-century obsession--everything deserves a standing ovation--at the expense of penetrating critical insight.