The Reviews are in...
THE BOSTON GLOBE
DANCE REVIEW
Sinuous 'Forgotten' is rich with imagery
Bodies twist and stretch together in "It's All Forgotten Now."
By Karen Campbell, Globe Correspondent | April 17, 2007
CAMBRIDGE -- Blink, and you could almost miss it. But the creative seeds for Kelley Donovan's new evening-length dance "It's All Forgotten Now" begin to germinate in the choreographer/dancer's brief opening solo.
Though it seems to go by in a heartbeat, it's a blistering microcosm of the whole piece, and it's all about transformation. You can see it in the sinuous coils of limbs that seem to twist completely around, like a snake shedding its skin. And with each torque of the arm or leg, the body is pulled in a different direction. A full-figured dancer with remarkable suppleness, speed, and control, Donovan is a commanding presence, shifting weight and dynamic impulse with quicksilver lightness and precision.
Donovan created the 45-minute work in New York City last fall, taking time off from her teaching gigs here with the help of a Harkness Space Grant from the 92nd Street Y to assemble a group of dancers who worked together off and on for four months. After the January premiere of the work in New York, 11 of them traveled to join Donovan for the work's Boston-area debut. At the Dance Complex over the weekend, "It's All Forgotten Now" was revealed as one of Donovan's most ambitious and sustained works to date.
There's no narrative and little context, save what we know from the subtitle: "An evening-length dance exploring transformation, decay and memory." It flows through constant metamorphoses -- movements erupting, developing, tossed off then recalled and transformed moments later. A sparse original electronic soundscape of buzzes, crackles, whirs, gurgles, and rumbles by Stephen Cooper and Punck sets the tone: This is not a linear creation. It's more that we are dropping in on a series of moments happening with or without our presence.
"It's All Forgotten Now" is rich with imagery. Arms reach and fingers wriggle as if beckoning. Hands clasp, then spring apart as if bursting into bloom. Bodies lengthen, stretching out luxuriously, then retract as if recoiling from a full blast of heat or light. Backs, shoulders, and heads release into deeply arched postures of abandon.
Donovan's talented dancers, who collaboratively created much of the movement, alternate between moving in their own circumscribed orbits and coming together as a community. In a couple of sections, they slowly, respectfully encircle a lone dancer, framing her individual journey like some time-honored ritual. In other sections, they break into a high-energy flurry of entrances and exits, running in circles at near full speed , throwing themselves into deep lunges and manic spins, spiraling to the floor before sailing off into the wings.
The evening's greatest disappointment is that we don't see more of Donovan. After the initial solo, she has only one other brief, intense dance midway. As the work evaporates into darkness at the end, I found myself asking, "Is that all?"
EDGE BOSTON
Kelley Donovan & Dancers
by Sue Katz
EDGE Boston Contributor
Monday Apr 16, 2007
KD & Dancers at rehearsal
Local choreographer Kelley Donovan went to NYC for a year and, lucky woman, brought back nearly a dozen lovely young women dancers, most of them recent college graduates. Since September they have been collaborating on a performance piece that the NY Times praised for the "dynamic shifts that told its story." Titled It’s All Forgotten Now: exploring transformation, decay and memory, Donovan and the dancers had a three-day run (April 13-15) at the Dance Complex in Cambridge.
Using electronic music compiled from bits that sounded to my non-electronic ears like a compendium of static, tinkling, drips and, most strikingly, a sizzling buzz like those gadgets that catch and fry flies, Donovan first strung together the 45-minute modern dance choreography, and then built the music around it. "Our collaborative approach," Donovan told Edge, "is a departure from the hierarchical styles of conventional dance companies." She also pointed out that not only were the women partnering each other, they were also lifting each other. While this is scarcely revolutionary, having been visible in many dance companies since the 1970s, it was definitely a nice touch within a modern genre some consider old-fashioned.
At both the opening and mid-point, Kelley herself soloed with improvisations that used the very movements underlying the work of the others. Donovan’s opening was strong - and because of her age and shape promised more body diversity than the show delivered. With her remarkably expressive hands and arms, she held the stage and our attention powerfully. The set pieces of her dancers had been created through the catalyst of exercises Donovan assigned, such as "reach back behind the self and move side to side." Once a phrase was accepted as an element in the performance, Donovan created variations in motion - using the same movement for lifts, turns or on the floor.
The dancers, some of them performing in a group for the first time, are to be congratulated for their expressive energy - running across the stage until stopped by an unseen force field, bending backwards or spinning down to the floor. In a post-performance Q&A they told the audience that, now that Donovan is back in Boston, they are continuing to rehearse and create together in New York. As for Donovan, look for her own company or sign up to the invaluable listserv she created for the Boston Dance Action Network at dance-action-network-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
My only footnote is about the depressing state of crucial "off-Broadway" venues like the Dance Complex. The building seems to be in a state of disintegration and the springs in the strangely upholstered benches were a rather kinky rear reminder of the lack of funding for community arts.