Sharon Cumberland

Meany Center for the Performing Arts

Compagnie Käfig: “Pixel”

George Meany Hall, University of Washington

November 18, 2018

Reviewed by Sharon Cumberland                          

“Pixel” (2014)

Choreography: Mourad Merzouki

Digital production: Adrien Mondot and Claire Berdainne

Music Design: Armand Amar

See review in Seattle Gay News

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            The audience at Many Hall went crazy for Compagnie Käfig, a Franco-Brazillian hip-hop dance group. In a 70 minute program entitled “Pixel” the eleven member troupe treated the audience to a full demonstration of the hip-hop dance vocabulary, plus some circus-style acts including an in-line skater, a contortionist, and an expert on the Cyr Wheel—a super-sized hula hoop that a person uses as if their body were the spokes of a giant bicycle wheel. The most fascinating element in the program for me was the interactive videos that contextualized the dancer’s movements. The effect was so mysterious that as I left the theater I heard people wondering if the sheets of light that flew and scattered through out the dances were projections, props, or some kind of electronic setting. Were the dancers really pushing through curtains of light “pixels” or were they miming to a pre-programed pattern? I still don’t know—but the effect was intriguing to watch and impossible to describe.

            It was good that Compagnie Käfig had a brilliant visual dimension because the rest of the program was fairly conventional. The hip-hop repertoire in general is very limited compared to most contemporary dance forms. After you’ve been wowed by the startling spins and movements developed in variations on popping, locking, and break dancing there’s not much more there. While it’s great to see a dancer spinning around on the top of his head, or standing on one arm while twisting his legs into a pretzel, how many times can you see that in one performance without wondering what it actually means? Most forms of choreography are arrangements of people in patterns in order to convey feelings (in abstract dance) or stories (in narrative dance). Hip-hop conveys strong feelings—amazement, excitement, machismo, competitiveness—but lacks both range and nuance. There have been many efforts to give hip-hop a wider audience through more conventional genres in order to reach a wider audience—the Broadway musical Hamilton is the most successful—but a little hip-hop goes a long way. For me, it didn’t quite go the 70 minutes.

            Don’t get me wrong—I love this approach to art: if you don’t like what’s on offer, or if you don’t have access to the artsy-fartsy world (to use a refined expression), then you make up your own dances or music or paintings. Hip-hop is a street invention that has been the staple of generations of people who either had no access or had no interest in older traditions and so made up their own. I’ll never forget the first time I saw someone do the turtle on a collapsed cardboard box on a back street in Brooklyn—I didn’t believe what I was seeing was humanly possible until I actually saw it. And how many of you readers remember the first time you saw Michael Jackson do the moonwalk? Magical, astonishing, unforgettable—it triggers a whole range of excitement. But after excitement, what is there? Compagnie Käfig did the whole thing really well, and my guess is that the average attendee at Meany Hall hadn’t seen these amazing moves before, and so were thrilled and delighted. (They are also one of the most warm and welcoming audiences in the Seattle arts world).

            Compagnie Käfig’s introduction of circus movement was also an interesting effort to introduce variation into the essential sameness of the dances. The spinning of the Cyr wheel emulates and develops the downrock moves of breakdancing by setting up a parallel universe of spinning. The female contortionist—though repetitive in her one skill of bending backwards and walking like a crab—paralleled the freeze-frame attitudinal posing of hip hop dance-offs. But the problem of complexity—of expressing the emotional range of human feeling, and of constructing nuanced gestures that communicate those feelings—has not yet been solved by this form of dance. Hip hop choreographers may have no interest in solving it, but until they do, or until they find a way of appropriating movements that go beyond individual showing off—it will be less interesting than the best of ballet and contemporary dance.

            I applaud Mourad Merzouki and especially Adrien M/Claire B for their innovations, and hope that they will go even further in the direction of finding “the new” in street dancing. But it’s the choreography that needs to develop—not just the arts that surround the choreography. The dancers themselves were amazing, but they executed a predictable set of movements in an excellent way. They weren’t able to tell us anything new about the human condition or lift the veil and show us the sublime—things that the best choreographers achieve because of their inventive use of large and highly developed dance vocabularies.

            It’s the job of Meany Center for the Arts to bring us everything that’s happening in dance—and they do a great job. I’m glad they brought Compagnie Käfig to Seattle and I hope they continue to search for the best companies in every dance form. I also hope that there’s some hip-hop dance troupe out there that’s figuring out how to extend the range of the form beyond the spectacular.

Whim W’Him Seattle Contemporary Dance

“3 x 3”

Yin Yue, Zoe Schofield, Olivier Wevers, choreographers

Cornish Playhouse

January 18, 2019

Review by Sharon Cumberland               

See Review on Seattle Gay News

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            Whim W’Him Seattle Contemporary Dance is distinctive in its commitment to the commissioning and performance of new works in all of its programs. Founder-choreographer Olivier Wevers creates more opportunities for emerging and experienced dance-makers than any other company in Seattle—or probably in the in the nation. While many companies will present an evening of commissioned works in a season of revivals and classics, Whim W’Him presents only new works in all of its annual programs. This extraordinary commitment to the creativity of artists—both dancers and dance-makers—is like a fertile field with a varied and fascinating array of crops. The company is small—seven talented dancers who work together for an impressive thirty-five weeks a year, many of whom have worked with each other over the ten years of the company’s existence. Compared to companies that create works for larger forces, Whim W’Him’s size is ideal for the demands of a dozen or so new works per year.

            The first program every season is the Choreographic Shindig, which invites as many as eight emerging choreographers—chosen by the dancers themselves—to create new works. The second program is generally given over to more established choreographers as Whim W’Him’s reputation and resources increase with each passing year. The third event is generally a full length work by Olivier Wevers, involving other artists, such as the Skyros Quartet and The Esoterics choral group in his wonderful setting of the poems of Cavafy in last year’s “Approaching Ecstasy,” or in the upcoming “Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater” in conjunction with Early Music Seattle. The current “3 x 3” showcases two very celebrated choreographers—Yin Yue  from China and NYC, and Seattle’s own Zoe Scofield—as well as Olivier Wevers, whose choreographic duties this year, including “Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater” and the full-length “The Little Prince” this coming June, seems to mark a new level of creative output. Here are the “3 x 3” dances in the order they were performed:

“The Most Elusive Hold” (New Creation)

Choreography: Yin Yue

            I’ve never seen a work by Yin Yue before, but I’ll be on the lookout for her in the future after seeing this terrific dance. The work is clean, geometric, exciting, and  complex. Five dancers in street clothes move to a variety of pulsing sounds by Emptyset, Shifted, Machinefabriek and others, creating an endless kaleidoscope of movement while somehow preserving the individual containment of each dancer. I was reminded of DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man—that double image of a nude with arms outstretched within a square embedded in a circle—showing the perfection of human proportions while forever encasing the individual in a perfect sphere. No matter how much the dancers combined and re-combined themselves, or flung out their arms, legs, toes, it was as if they were moving within individual spheres as a kind of hyper-individualism. I must say that this was my favorite dance of the evening—I could have watched it repeatedly and never unpacked the intricacy of its combinations, or tired of watching the dancers describe their Vetruvian circles of light.

 “This mountain” (New Creation)

Choreography: Zoe Scofield

                        I last saw Zoe Scofield’s work as part of zoe | juniper’s “Clear and Sweet” at On the Boards in 2016, a memorable work inspired by Sacred Harp singing—that strange tradition of Christian hymnody in which singers “shout” the hymns to fasola tunes. It was an unforgettable event, uniting dance and mystery with this weird old American hymn tradition. Scofield revisits the tradition in “This mountain” (“mountain” is not capitalized) by mixing the hymns with snatches of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as seven dancers emerge from behind a black partition as if dazzled by some entity situated behind the audience. They are dressed in what could be described as “praise costumes”—white garments that conjure up a choir or a group baptism. The dancers approach the mystery, tumbling the front row backwards in an endless regression before breaking into various configurations that range from folk movement to the dance equivalent of speaking in tongues. One of the most striking images was a rectangle of bright light that lay like a carpet on the stage, beckoning each dancer to enter the light as the others stood back and watched in fascination. The tension between the dark scrims and the carpet of light created a universe of exploration without a sense of threat. I love Scofield’s willingness to probe the mysteries of faith without apology—especially in an historical moment when the dire effects of immoral power are threatening our country and the world.

“Trail of Soles” (New Creation)

Choreography: Olivier Wevers

            Continuing in that moral vein is Wevers’ new work in which the dance space is defined by empty shoes arranged in various patterns. In his program notes Wevers references the “65 million refugees worldwide” who “have been forcibly compelled to leave their home to escape famine, climate change, war, and persecution.” The seven dancers whose anguished, intense movements convey these losses move the shoes into new paths and shapes as the dilemma of homelessness unfolds. Shoes are the perfect, simple metaphor for both home (the shoes parked under the bed, the shoes in the closet, the shoes waiting by the door) and for the unanchored wandering of the desperate refugee (the sore feet, the worn-out soles, the endless journey, the suffering souls). Wevers’ choreographic gift is narrative in character: he is a dance-maker who uses familiar objects to tell stories, whether through images of devils, silent film stars, umbrellas and bowler hats, or shoes. Like a good poet, he calls upon our associations with concrete items to supply hints about the meaning of dance structures that might otherwise remain abstract. I love abstraction in dance, such as Yin Yue’s offering of pure movement onto which I can formulate my own ideas about containment and proportion. But I also love the more literal revelations into the artists’ minds, especially when they address the major concerns of the audience and times. Wevers’ powerful moral voice empowers choreography to grapple with the war between injustice and hope. As he pointed out in a post-performance discussion, the selection of choreographers for a program such as this one is governed not only by talent—and he can have his pick, since what choreographer would turn down an opportunity to make a new dance with such marvelous resources?—but also by a certain sensibility. He didn’t define that sensibility, but I think that I can: it’s an aura of realistic optimism, in which hope for humanity trumps injustice.

            There’s still time to see Whim W’Him’s “3 x 3” at Cornish Playhouse through January 26, 2019.

Men in Dance/ Against the Grain
2018 Festival: Second Program
Broadway Performance Hall
Seattle Central Community College
October 5, 2018

Reviewed by: Sharon Cumberland

See Review in Seattle Gay News

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            Once again the bi-annual Men in Dance Festival brought a wonderful group of established and emerging choreographers to create works for men only—though the works  I saw in Program 2 were created by highly experienced, prize-winning dance-makers who have their own companies, teach in colleges and universities, and create new dances for companies around the world.  It seems that with every passing year the Dance Festival becomes more polished and consistent in its quality of new creations. I wish I could have seen both programs in this year’s festival, but was lucky enough to see the program that focused on solo dances and small groups. I am impressed by the excellence achieved by all eight of the choreographers whose works were performed, and the brilliance of the dancers, whose variety of styles, body types, and movement made for a fascinating show. My dance buddy for the evening, who had had never seen modern dance choreography before, was suitably astonished. This is my fourth Men in Dance Festival so I wasn’t surprised—simply delighted. Here’s a rundown of the program, and the edgy, weird, original, surprising, and intriguing works presented.

“Trio SML” by Gérard Théoret

            After this dance I turned to my buddy and said “If all the dances are this good, we’re in for a great evening!” It was the perfect opener—upbeat, funny, and perfectly executed by Kince De Vera, Geoffrey Johnson, and Chris McCallister. They were the three bears of dancers—large, medium, and small—moving through witty choreography in flawless unison. The dance exploited their differences with lifts and twists that showcased each dancer’s strengths while transforming oddballs into harmony. Théoret, one of the founding members of Men in Dance, could teach our divided nation something about the glories of diversity.

“Bodhicitta” by Alvin Rangel

            This was the first—and most impressive—of the three solo dances of the evening. Rangel performed his own creation in which a man enacts what appears to be the history of his tribe in movements at once passionate and epic. I didn’t read the program note about “a warrior striving to achieve spiritual transcendence,” but the dance, for me, surpassed the stated intention, taking on a universal quality that moved beyond the individual. Rangel’s  primal movement and gestures told a very clear and compelling story.

“2 Skim with Azrael” by Sam Picart

            Elijah Kirk and choreographer Sam Picart performed this duo about organization men going berserk. They took turns expressing a fabulous vocabulary of gestures. I have never seen locking like the movement in this dance—the animation of every individual joint and limb in ways that seemed impossible. I was truly agog. The narrative flowed through the bodies of each dancer like a liquid language, expressing grief, longing, journeying, fleeing, finding, rescuing. I have no idea what the title means—but if I had to give it a title I’d call it something like “Human Extremes”—in feeling, and in movement. This one was my dance buddy’s favorite—she is a person of color who knows street dancing, and was very impressed with what a fertile mind could do with familiar patterns.

“I Am You, Fully and Truly” by Alex Ketley

            The first half of the program ended with a quartet of dancers moving in what seemed like pantomime rather than dance, to a soundscape of wind or the steady hum of a machine. The ambiguity of sound enhanced the ambiguity of introspective movement, almost as though the men were engaged in interpretive dance—the freedom of spontaneous movement to express feelings. This opening stage resolved into a kind of ecstatic dance, like saints having visions of God. The invention of movement—double pliés, horizontal lifts, balances, a beautiful gesture of couples facing each other with arms  extended over each other’s shoulders—gave a sense deep complexity beneath a surface of spontaneity. This work was commissioned—a very special opportunity and vote of confidence for any choreographer—and well deserved, as this dance demonstrates.

“Limeless” by  Autumn Eckman

            The second half of the program opened with the first of two dances choreographed by women—Men in Dance has always encouraged women choreographers to make dances for guys. This was the second solo of the evening, in which a very brawny fellow in shorts and suspenders is being tempted, led, or confined by a series of colored tapes spread out on the floor. It was powerfully performed by Benjamin Wardell in a series of movements that veered between casual strolling to gravity-defying balances, weaving a tale about life, opportunity, interest, and disinterest. Eckman achieved a work that is somewhat weird and somewhat charming, that strikes a successful balance between intensity and nonchalance.

 “only he might know?” by Joseph “Jo” Blake

            The third solo of the evening was a very personal, very moving commentary on the dilemma of men who are trapped in the macho universe of physical performance. Sean O’Bryan danced Blake’s passionate movements in what appeared to be a gym from which he could not escape. In my notes I wrote “the torment of sports”—because the culture of masculine performance—not only in the gym but on the playing fields of the worl—is so pervasive that it’s easy to forget the price men have to pay for it. This dance was difficult to watch because it was so personal, and so painful.

“Umbilic” by Jared Doster

            So it was a relief to see choreographer Jared Doster and dancer Wesley Cordova roll a big, circular ball of metal onto the stage—a cage? a giant hula hoop welded to other giant hula hoops?—and proceed to do a dramatic array of movements inside and outside of it. This dance had the WOW! factor of Pilobolus (with whom Doster toured for five years) and the braininess of a big metal metaphor of entrapment, escape, independence, and interdependence. I could have watched these guys all day—heck, I wanted to climb onto the stage and roll around in the big thing myself. It was deceptively fun/simple looking—but devilishly difficult to rock, roll, swing, and twirl. I loved it.

“Noise at the Door (2018) excerpt” by Deborah Wolf

            The program ended with the largest ensemble of the evening—seven men who moved together in groups, squares, lines, and even a gaggle of eye-rolling, synonym-spouting protesters against an inane and unseen narrator who can’t spit out a complete sentence. I loved the use Deborah Wolf made of language as a motivation for movement, and the use of dance to challenge meaninglessness. It was also a great pleasure to see so many men dancing together—an answer to the conventional world of dance that has accustomed us to expecting to see women dancing together and men standing ready to partner and lift. Modern dance has been better at giving men a voice, but dances such as this one really show the audience what men in dance looks like.

            I left the Broadway Performance Hall with a strong reminder that if you want more men to become dancers, you need to change choreography. It’s the obvious point of the Men in Dance Festival, but one that needs to stated clearly. Both ballet and modern dance have been strongly woman-centric since their inceptions—not that women have always benefitted, as the current scandal at the New York City Ballet demonstrates. Equalizing the ownership of dance can only benefit everyone. and the Men in Dance Festival is in the forefront of innovation and re-imagination in the world of dance. What a wonderful and important addition to the dance world!