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Dances For the Brain 2006 Choreographers' Showcase by Kate Mattingly Heady ideas and humanistic movement came together in the 2006 Choreographers‚ Showcase presented by the Clarice Smith Center and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Fifty-five applicants auditioned for the showcase, now in its 23rd year, and seven pieces were selected by adjudicators Joanna Mendl Shaw and Janis Brenner. Most of the choreographers on the bill were university instructors, which begged the question: does the academic setting provide the resources in terms of space, salary and bodies that independent choreographers cannot sustain? And is this why so many pieces seemed to be driven by ideas and relationships rather than music and composition? The emphasis on intellect was especially evident in the evening's opener by Nejla Yatkin, a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her "Lost in Memory (part 1)" began with five dancers lying supine, large sheets of paper covering their bodies like blankets, while words scrolled up the backdrop behind them: "How can I remember something that doesn't want to be remembered?" As the dancers began to shift, and a sixth rushed on stage with sweeping, full-bodied movement, Yatkin's choreographic skills became apparent. She knows how to make lush phrases, and can mold a group of dancers into formations and patterns, but my concentration was torn between the dancing and the words on the backdrop, which appeared throughout the piece. One sentence spoke of a "Book of Life," which could explain the rolls of paper used as props by the dancers and the fragments of paper that were sewn to their costumes, creating fantastic crinkling and rustling sounds. The recorded score provided another acoustic layer: French words and melodies from the song "Favorite Things" floated throughout. One of the most stunning moments came when one dancer ran towards another, stepping up onto one of her legs to hover over her head, reaching for something just beyond grasp, a beautiful image of yearning. The motif was repeated using the same reaching dancer, running towards and pulling herself above each of the others. It was a powerful visual, and also alluded to our efforts to recall something just beyond reach. The solo that followed was made by Tonya Lockyer, in collaboration with performer Sandra Lacy, and was another combination of research and performance. Entitled "Two Miniatures: 1914," the piece took this fertile year of dance innovation as inspiration for a collage of steps alluding to Charlie Chaplin, Mary Wigman, Vaslav Nijinsky and Isadora Duncan. As a dancer, Lacy is beautifully facile: energy pulled through her body from her heel to her hip through her torso and into her shoulder in seamless swirls. When she created a ragdoll pose, she evoked Nijinsky's "Petrouchka." Again, the piece could have been seen as a historical document, combining these different innovators‚ vocabularies, but it also succeeded as pure dance, a kinetic visual for Stravinsky's "Three Piece for String Quartet." The next duet, "The Dragons Project: Power Play (Endgame)," made and performed by Laura Schandelmeier and Stephen Clapp, was composed of more pedestrian images: the two dancers crouched as if under attack from something above and built a column of fists with their hands. The score by Jacqueline Schwab provided sounds of a piano, mumbled by static, and a heart beat. It was hard to understand the relationship between the dancers, which seemed to change from playful to antagonistic. At times they looked at each other inquisitively. When the piece ended, Schandelmeier appeared to lean towards Clapp to kiss him, but the intention was not clear. The next piece, "What if? Or Not," was created and danced by Helanius Wilkins, the founder and artistic director of Edgeworks Dance Theater, and Gesel Mason, the artist-in-residence from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). The dancers, both mature performers, fully inhabited the piece, which could be described a visual conversation between two partners. Semi-dressed—Wilkins in a jacket and boxers, Mason in a translucent dress, they moved through individual soliloquies. When they came together their interactions felt familiar; they played between states of rest and unrest, connected and disconnected. The score by Source Direct provided a driving pulse. Mason, a particularly attractive dancer, shifted between slicing movements of the arms and wiggles that made her body appear liquid. The calm, organic beauty in the next piece, a trio created by Penn State faculty member Michele Dunleavy, brought to mind Matisse's mural, "Dance." The three women wore white tunics, flowing over their curves, and their demeanor was so slow and sustained, moments gave the impression of dancing underwater. Natural sounds in the score and the orange tone on the scrim added to this pastoral atmosphere. When the piece ended and the lights dimmed, the three were walking upstage, their bodies silhouetted in a perfect image of voluptuous beauty. Why the piece was entitled "Diana's Mirror" was not completely clear, although its formal quality brought to mind a classic figure like mythology‚s Diana. "In My Own," an apt title for a tap solo that looked like a personal meditation, followed. Made and danced by Marlita Hill, it was set to John Boswell's "Leaf Dream." The juxtaposition of percussive tap beats and lyrical piano melodies was at first jarring, but over time the relationship between the two became symbiotic with Hill inserting clicks and rhythms in between the piano's phrases. This was not the typical furious footwork associated with tap, but rather an individual journey through the music. Hill has a terrifically expansive quality in her upper body as she taps, her arms becoming wing-like, floating above her legs. Her costume—a sequined top and burgundy capris—was almost too formal for this private exploration. The program closed with "Bite," by Shane O'Hara, a professor at James Madison University. Danced by nine women, the piece began with them in a cluster and sounds of a didgeridoo in the score. As they revolved around, their backs to the center of the stage, they looked like a nine-headed creature rotating its body. They were dressed in white kimono-like outfits designed by Pamela S. Johnson with wide, colorful cummerbunds at their waists and their hair pulled up in knots. With their faces powdered white, their strange expressions were even more bizarre. They each carried a red apple, an object loaded with symbolic meanings, and as the piece developed, they separated and cavorted with their apples, throwing, rolling and biting them. While most of the pieces on the program used their scores atmospherically (with the exception of the tap solo), O'Hara drew inspiration from the music by Steve Roach, John Zorn and Carlos Zingaro. It was great to see the dancers responding to and interacting with the music, even if some moments were confusing: why did they let the apples drop out of their mouths? Why did the dancers hobble on the balls of their feet? Perhaps the purpose was in the picture: unique, unusual, and unforgettable images. Volume 4, No. 8
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