When buying my ticket, I thought that this performance would be similar to that of February dance. However, as soon as I walked into the studio theater, my expectations were dropped. Unlike the other performances I’ve been to, the audience for this show was much, much smaller. If I had to guess, I’d say the maximum capacity of the theater was about 100 people, but only 30 people or so were actually in the audience when I saw it. I think this set a totally different expectation and atmosphere for watching dance. For me, the lack of audience members limited distraction and really immersed me into the dances themselves and I felt as if I was able to better understand these dances than I have in previous shows. I thought this show had a good variety and was the perfect length- it kept me interested. Rather than talking about the performance as a whole, I’d like to focus on a few pieces as individual art works.
“Dinosaur Jesus boom boom balloon” was the first dance. Before the dance started, I thought it was interesting to note that this was choreographed by Nico Brown; however, Charles Gowin was the sole performer. He did not choreograph any of the other dances, nor does he have a blurb about him in the profiles section of the program. Anyways..
I thought this dance was one of the more unique dances in the show. Unlike many of the others, I was not able to attach a story or specific meaning to this piece. That said I was able to make a few connections. When I first looked at the title, I was interested to see the dance itself and how the title fit it or gave it meaning. In the middle-ish of the dance, Charles was what I’ll call dancing heavy on his feet. His motions were rough and made loud noises as he took steps or landed from leaps and turns. I connected the pounding of his feet against the ground to the “boom boom” in the title. However, I did not attach a specific meaning. Towards the end, the made sweeping motions with his arm that looked to me as if he was opening a set of double doors, he then walked to the back of the stage and proceeded to walk through the imaginary doors to front, center where he then did some sort of pose and repeated the sequence- walking to the back, turning around walking back to the front and “posing.” I interpreted this as he was walking through a set of open doors and presenting himself. This made me think of the “Jesus” part of the title- was this supposed to be a representation of heavens doors opening for him to walk through and present himself to God?
I was able to make some connections between the dance itself and the title. However, when looking at the piece as whole the message or story was not as clear. What I concluded was that the randomness of the title matched the somewhat randomness of the choreography. The choreography included sliding and rolling around on the floor, elements of ballet-ish styles, leaps, spins, stomping, walking, running, and standing still. Furthermore, the dance started to the sound of background music (the sound of people in a hurry, moving around and talking). The noise then stopped and later soft and soothing music was on. Ultimately I decided that the seemingly randomness/ variety of the choreography matched the unique and seemingly confusing title.
The last thing this performance brought up for me was 2 connections I was able to make to class and my experiences rather than to just the performance and the title. The first being the use of space. We’ve worked in class with the idea of really using the space you’re given and I think that this piece really did a good job of demonstrating what it looks like to fill and take up a space. The other thing I thought of while watching this was in relation to the music. Honestly I’m surprised it took me this long to make a connection or think of this. As I watched the parts without music, I wondered is the dancer doing each move to counts in his head or is he doing the motions without counts and rather to his own rhythm and feelings? Consequently, I decided that either were viable options, in which case it would depend on the music. Therefore, I wondered about when the sounds were cued. In high school I was on crew for some of the plays and musicals. In theater sounds and music or the orchestra are cued by the actor’s lines not by time. So I wondered if this was the same way. Was the music cued by a particular part in the choreography, in which case it was controlled almost completely by the dancer himself, or was it cued by time, in which case the piece would be controlled by the people in the sound booth.
The next dance I’d like to talk about was also choreographed by Nico Brown, who if anyone was wondering has a terrifically interesting mustache. This time he was not only the choreographer, but also the dancer. This was the 4th dance and was title “I am slowly becoming my mother”. I liked this piece. It was clear and easy to follow the story and it was funny.
Like the title implies, this piece showed a transformation from a more aggressive and youthful character to a more gentle and slower figure like a mother. This story and transformation was achieved by contrasts. Nico started with quick, loud, aggressive movements and would quickly transfer to softer, slower motions. At one point, I remember him running to the front corner of the stage and acting as if he was punching a punching bag- a aggressive, physical, and very masculine activity. He then turned around, put his hands up and walked around slowing almost as if he was confused. I think this was a great example of the type of things he used throughout the performance to depict the transformation occurring throughout the dance. The other thing I really enjoyed was the juxt of position between a light orange background and no music to a blue background and the upbeat, song In da Club by 50 cent. Not only was this change cool to see but this moment also helped tell the story. Normally when you hear a song like that you wouldn't do minimal, slow movements like he did during this part. This also showed that maybe he was letting go of his youthful spirit and becoming more like his mother.
The only question this dance brought up for me was what, if anything was he trying to say about gender roles through this dance? As a male choreographer and performer, he could have easily title the piece ‘I am slowly becoming my father,’ but he didn't.
Going back to the 3rd dance, “Walking a thin line” by Jazmyne Thomas I thought this dance also was easily to follow through contrasting movements or lack of movement. I thought it was easy to see the different feeling and emotions that one goes through each and every day through her work. I also thought she did something really cool with the lighting that made her piece all the better. The dace started of very dark, she was walking across the stage singing (side note: she has an incredible voice) “I can feel my heart beating faster.. can you feel it?” holding a lantern with a little light in it. Once she got to the opposite corner of the stage she set the lantern down and turned the light off. As she did so the background lighting slowing turned on. She did her dance. Then again at the end the lights started to fade back to darkness as she turned the lantern back on. I think that the slow fading of the light and the difference between light and darkness was really cool. It also clearly set the stage for her performance as it showed the difference between night and day.
I also really like her costume for this piece. (Costume coordinator was Jess Gersz) She was wearing pink parachute-like pants and a orangeish-brownish-pinkish cropped tribal pattern top. I also noticed that her hair was died a orange-ish color which matched her costume. I don’t know if that was planned or not but it added to her costume and looked cool. All in all, I thought Jazmyne did a really great job with this piece.
The last performance I’d like to talk about was the 5th dance- “Turn to Dust.” It was choreographed by Skylee Trimble and one 1 of 3 dances that featured multiple dancers. I think I’m going to have to say that this dance was my favorite for a few reasons. Not in a particular order, but the first being it was what I will deem a “traditional dance” meaning it was to Turn to Dust from Ma Fleur by the Cinematic Orchestra featuring Patrick Wilson through the entire performance and the motions matched the tempo of the song. It also contained parts of synchronized dancing which many of the past performances I’ve seen for this class did not necessarily have. The second reason I loved their costumes. The dance was made up of 7 girls and one boy. All of the girls were wearing white lace dresses and Thomas was wearing black pants. While I cannot say for certain that it was planned this way, I think it was interesting to note that all of the girls were Caucasian and wearing white and Thomas was African-American and wearing black. While it may not have been intentional when picking the dancers for this piece, I find it very hard to believe that the costume choice was purely a coincidence. Throughout the piece, I was trying to find a correlation between gender/ race and the message or meaning of the dance. I did not find anything. However, I did find a very clear and relateable story which was the third reason I think that this was my favorite.
This dance told the story of a group of people coming together, showed the struggle to stay united, and in the end portrayed the group “turning to dust” or falling apart leaving only a few standing. The dance featured several parts where you could clearly see group dependence in their motions which showed unity of the group. For example, there was one part where all of the dancers were laying on the ground almost army crawling and holding on to the person’s foot in front of them. During this part the lyrics of the song said “hold on to me.” During another part there was one dancer dancing alone and the rest around Thomas who was acting like a tree. During this part the song lyrics were “I climb the tree to see the world.” This is an example of the group trying to stay together but starting to fall apart as the one dancing alone had gotten away. The entire dance was full of examples and connections like this. At the very end of the dance all of the dancers were in a formation together and fell to the ground with the exception of 3 dancers, spread out, that remained standing which drove the point home and concluded the piece nicely.
