Shore is not one of these big, showy dances that photograph well for the front page of the Arts section. It's more like a Terrence Malick movie: it will enthrall you with its unhurried pace and dazzle with its wizardry – or it will leave you cold and confused. Either way, you should go, because there is not enough pieces like this one: it’s rare for a piece of Tanztheater to reveal itself as work of truly wordless work of space and movement. It’s rare for a piece that uses language to be beyond words, and rare for a piece of music to have you waiting for each pause between the sounds.
It stars outdoors: the audiences are led into a school courtyard and left there, with no instructions other than a flimsy sign that says GATHER HERE. It's cold, so some of them will get a red blanket to keep warm. Everyone is waiting. A woman begins to sing in a clear, bell-like voice. Some other voices pick the singing up. Or maybe it’s just a recording? Who is performing, and who is a civilian?
There is no point in telling scene by scene what happens: enough to say that every block around becomes stage and every pedestrian a performer - even before the show actually moves to NYLA, whet it is officially presented. Maybe there is no dance before you get there, or maybe every movement is a dance you came to see? You won't be sure until it's all over, or maybe you won't be sure even when it does.
Once on bare NYLA stage, the dance begins – or just continues. Hard to say. You'll be the judge. One thing I can assure you of: you will not find a coherent way of putting what you saw in words. And if you do, there will only be snippets.
The light, bright and sharp, and harsh, and pointed. Red. Yellow. Orange. Sound of the performer's breath, amplified and rhythmic like the sound of a drum. Thumping. Silence. Words. A song. Silence again. Heavy breathing, a stark reminder of the effort that goes into making bodies move. Is that a solo or an ensemble piece? Thirty people on stage, only one of them moving, and even when she does, you can't really tell for sure if she's dancing or just trembling.
Are these parkas costumes, or are the dancers simply trying to stay warm in his windy weather? Is it a ritual solo, or a stranger reenactment of an unidentifiable sporting event, complete with the murmur of spectators gathered in the bleachers? Are these characters the Indians? Or are they aliens? Or both? Are they supposed to signify the past, or the future? Are we the eponymous shore, or standing on it, or looking at it from afar and barely seeing anything at all?
Are these guys NYLA staff? Where did I see aluminum foil on walls before? Is this woman who left her cellphone on just rude, or was she hired to just sit there and ignore the beeping?
Why are these gestures so familiar, have I seen them? The circle? The closely crowded group of people old and young? Where does this song come from? Is it familiar? If so, what does it remind of? Is it over when they leave the stage? Or is it just beginning?
You see, I can’t tell you what I saw exactly. It was more like a mood than a story, more like a dreamy poem than a fact. What I took with me was the sense of wonder. It spun from this eerie, silent walk through the streets of Chelsea, together with all the others, but at the same time alone. There was a sound, a bell-like soundscape that started at the playground, and walked right with us, turning a schlep through windy weather into a celebration. It made me think that what I love about art is that it has the power of spilling beyond the walls of a theater, and when it touches reality, it becomes pure magic, too.
There was a busker on the platform when I was boarding a Brooklyn-bound train. He played xylophone, the same bell-like sound. What I was just a part of still continued. And just when I thought that was it, this note (see above) slid out of my NYLA program booklet.
I’ll open in four days. I don’t want it to be over yet.
[Top photo by Erin Westover, stolen from DanceEnthusiast.]
Emily Johnson/Catalyst, SHORE in Lenapehoking (NYC), New York Live Arts, Apr 23-25.