Fit for a Museum; The Seldoms present "All at Once" at Studio5

The Cubist movement of 20^th-century art leads the inspiration for artistic director Carrie Hanson’s latest work in the opener of The Seldoms’ 25th season. This dynamic world premiere collaboration with percussionist Tim Daisy at Evanston’s Studio5 this weekend, “All at Once” applies the visual art concept (made famous by Pablo Picasso) to the dancing body. With a stage space as a canvas on which to paint with dancers, using angularity, repetition and speed, Hanson tackles the Cubist challenge of simultaneously revealing multiple perspectives of the body.  

Garnering a flat, two-dimensional quality, Hanson repeatedly returns to a specific placement of the arms folded behind the head, a certain profile and bend of the knee, keeping the audience viewpoint in mind. Brief moments of three-dimensionality near the end of the evening-length work literally make the dance pop. Approaching it like a piece of visual art rather than a piece of theater, it’s as if Hanson invites the audience to soak it all in, rather than search for deep meaning or narrative.

As groupings unfold in predictable order from solo to duet, trio, quartet, quintet and final sextet, there is purposely little emotional connection among or between the ensemble of Faith Balderrama, Laren Chang, Damon D. Green, Haley Marcin, Rachel Newton and Dillon Zamora. Physicality takes the forefront, and the surprises come in the simplicity of the dance, as it unveils an opportunity to study the angle of an elbow or the tilt of the head in the same way that one might study a Picasso at the Art Institute.

Marcin opens with a grounded powerhouse solo, folding, squatting and lunging in curious contortions, like a doll whose limbs were not reattached properly. Basic black shorts and tank top (costume design by Lara Miller and Damon D. Green) blend with the dark stage space giving the eerie impression that Marcin’s bare limbs float, operating independently of a torso. Isolating toes and elbows, she folds one arm up behind her head and with knees crossed and rotated outwards, becomes a strange fusion between flamingo and chicken. Marcin introduces movement material that recurs, becoming the source for the rest of the piece. 

Each following dance segment allows deeper gestural study, and each adds a new layer of costuming with increased grey, layered accents over the black base. In Balderrama and Newton’s duet, moments of profile with gentle extended arms like a bas relief lead to more urgent pinwheeling arms and long horizontal sweeping arabesque turns. The trio that ensues (danced by Marcin, Green and Chang) begins to lose angles in favor of muscularity. 

Grey, billowy dirndl skirts emphasize the upper body and torso and give the following quartet a washerwoman quality as dancers grasp hands and pull each other across the floor in a funky square dance-like move. With split-timing precision, they cut diagonally through the space unfurling and spinning like gyroscopes with taught angular arms. In one brief flash, the foursome assembles side by side, giving quick nod to the famous “Swan Lake” Dance of the Little Swans. 

Performed by three musicians and blending improvised with set percussion, Daisy’s score drives the dance. At times like a mad scientist concocting potions from his percussion kit lab, Daisy lunges at cymbals, gongs and bells to create atmospheric dissonance. At other times, he manufactures a faux rainstorm by gently swirling shells across a drum head; all the while, his eyes dart back and forth to the dancers downstage. When the two other musicians, Phillip Sudderberg and Scott Taylor join in, the piece kicks into a higher level of sonic intensity that builds to a tight rhythmic frenzy. 

Towards the end, Hanson alters the full ensemble into more sculptural 3-D movement, adding overhead lifts and sudden falls to the floor. Grey accented costumes have morphed into stiff, curly, distorted hoop skirts with linear swirls, further segmenting the body. The group shifts between smoothly carving outstretched arms and specific mechanical movement devoid of breath. 

All the familiar gestures return, sometimes subtle, sometimes grinding yet obviously challenging. More quick handshakes intensify the spinning gyroscopes. Elbows point upward with hands supporting the head in attempt to show the front and back of the body at the same time. Suddenly and strikingly, dancers lock arms side by side, propelling each other in sharp half turns like facets of machine cogs flipping on an athletic assembly line. 

The Seldoms’ typically solid dance ensemble felt a little tentative on this opening night, matching the pace but not always the precision of the sound score. And choreographically, some of the middle sections feel a little undeveloped, like artist sketches waiting to be further worked. But when the full group assembles in a clump gently turning their heads to conceal one eye, flattening themselves once again into the two-dimensional angularity, the lights fade with a sense of melancholy. It’s as if the museum is closing but the desire to spend more time with this painting remains.

The Seldoms present “All at Once“ at Studio5 Performing Arts Center, 1934 Dempster Street, Evanston, October 16-17. For more information, check out the event page by clicking HERE.