Hubbard Street at Zellerbach, October 30, 2010
Nacho Duato's Arcangelo is beauty in a strange land. The set is the floor of the stage, lights jutting under the marley like bones and tendons pushing through skin. The dancers, clad in brown unitards, dance with a purity that is the visual equivalent of an extremely good orchestra: without noise.
When the curtain rises on Alejandro Cerrudo's Blanco, and a great milky cloud of fog looms out, the audience gasps and then laughs. It's as if we're afraid of our own ability to be captivated--or perhaps surprised that we can be by what is arguably an "old school" stage trick. Four spotlights drop in a straight line downstage. Four women each in their own cold glow. The fey Robyn Williams sweeps her legs up into a headstand.
Every one of the dancers in Hubbard Street is an individual -- even from the balcony, I could see exactly who was dancing.
As a side note, apparently I cannot get tired of watching men dancing in suits.
But nothing prepares you for the long intake of breath at Kylian's 27'52": the stunning solos done and then reversed to voices pervaded with Sehnsucht, that German word for which there is no adequate translation, just as there is no adequate way to represent the range of loves and losses traversed in less than half an hour among the three couples. The floor slips and is pulled up and out, curls, crumples. The dancers slip under the corners and hide, leap over the floor as it is pulled out from under them, glide over it, unfold it, move it like stage crew striking. The piece ends with everything and everyone in fragments; the stage is made and unmade, the dance is made and unmade, as we are in watching it.
The day after, I was at LINES for the usual, our little degenerate jogs around the block (this is what it feels like after you have watched demigods and superheroes move the universe). And there they were in the flesh, walking through the halls, lying on the floor, doing giant bold elastic leaps, aka warming up. I had to do the stammering thing where you try to tell someone how much they've moved you, and it is really embarrassing for everyone involved (also, some of them remembered me from two years ago; I almost wish they didn't, because they sure can't remember me for great dancing). I can't figure out if that makes the whole experience anticlimactic or not, but in the end, I guess we all represent ranges of the human.
When the curtain rises on Alejandro Cerrudo's Blanco, and a great milky cloud of fog looms out, the audience gasps and then laughs. It's as if we're afraid of our own ability to be captivated--or perhaps surprised that we can be by what is arguably an "old school" stage trick. Four spotlights drop in a straight line downstage. Four women each in their own cold glow. The fey Robyn Williams sweeps her legs up into a headstand.
Every one of the dancers in Hubbard Street is an individual -- even from the balcony, I could see exactly who was dancing.
As a side note, apparently I cannot get tired of watching men dancing in suits.
But nothing prepares you for the long intake of breath at Kylian's 27'52": the stunning solos done and then reversed to voices pervaded with Sehnsucht, that German word for which there is no adequate translation, just as there is no adequate way to represent the range of loves and losses traversed in less than half an hour among the three couples. The floor slips and is pulled up and out, curls, crumples. The dancers slip under the corners and hide, leap over the floor as it is pulled out from under them, glide over it, unfold it, move it like stage crew striking. The piece ends with everything and everyone in fragments; the stage is made and unmade, the dance is made and unmade, as we are in watching it.
The day after, I was at LINES for the usual, our little degenerate jogs around the block (this is what it feels like after you have watched demigods and superheroes move the universe). And there they were in the flesh, walking through the halls, lying on the floor, doing giant bold elastic leaps, aka warming up. I had to do the stammering thing where you try to tell someone how much they've moved you, and it is really embarrassing for everyone involved (also, some of them remembered me from two years ago; I almost wish they didn't, because they sure can't remember me for great dancing). I can't figure out if that makes the whole experience anticlimactic or not, but in the end, I guess we all represent ranges of the human.