The Center at West Park, New York, NY.
October 27, 2022.
Carmen Caceres/DanceMotion’s Welcome to Imagi*Nation: The Trilogy is a “choose-your-own-adventure dance theater interactive performance” that empowers audiences to “change the course of (imaginary) history.” At the middle of the present is a battle between two neighboring nations whose boundary consists of a row of empty five-gallon water jugs, the presence of which gives the look of there being two separate phases. Other plastic drink bottles litter the area, organized by sort, and so they seem to type the borders of the nations.
Each nation consists of three dancers, and every dancer appears to have a counterpart throughout the water jug border (e.g. two in energy, two bourgeois or center class, and two working class). We are advised that our enter will decide the result of Nation A and Nation 1’s relations. The message is loud and clear: our selections matter. “Let the game begin.” Life and politics are akin to a recreation.
Dancers in colourful (considerably mismatched) costumes are scattered throughout the stage, two “royal” figures positioned on the stage’s greater tier; one dons fur and spins round in an workplace chair whereas the opposite proves her the Aristocracy with (the admittedly drained trope of) arms formed right into a crown above her head. A female-presenting dancer creeps across the entrance of the stage, seeming to spy on the motion that’s unfolding above.
Much of the piece is task-based. Dancers string collectively groupings of three cans by sort, cowl the tops with tin foil, decide them up and drop them off elsewhere, typically into trash baggage. This course of, which is basically facilitated by the dancers who appear to characterize the working class, is ambiguous in reference, however we do get the sensation that every object and process actually represents one thing particular to the characters.
The music could be very stop-and-go, and the dancers largely stay on stage during the piece, frozen in place after they aren’t dancing. The motion vocabulary is primarily calm and angular, working inside a postmodern aesthetic, and there’s average use of facial features all through the piece. Much of the choreography is coordinated, however not in unison.
Audience members on stage left belong to Nation A and people on stage proper are members of Nation 1. The first real interactive second (which, like the remainder, is accompanied by a type of elevator music) invitations us to place foil on the stage to assist decide: if stage left collects extra foil, they steal Nation 1’s sources; if stage proper finally ends up with extra foil, borrowing happens. Theft wins out, and the bottle wall thickens in a frantic cacophony.
Another process asks us to vote for or towards persevering with to construct the wall. The viewers opts to halt wall building in favor of organizing sources, however by some means it looks like the dancers are defying our vote. I begin to assume, “Maybe my vote doesn’t actually matter,” which isn’t solely shocking on this context — the place we’ve been explicitly advised that our voices actually do matter — however makes me consider the helplessness that’s usually felt within the face of “real” political conditions.
Suddenly, “E-LEC-TION!” pops up on the projector and there’s a dance-off amongst the candidates. It’s a bit tacky, however we’re rewarded by attending to forged a poll to assist determine who will lead our respective nations.
Both incumbents win the election, however then there’s a battle inside Nation A, a coup of kinds. Our expectations as voting members maintain getting defied, which seems like a well-known story. We don’t even have the ability, which is concurrently a compelling parallel to “real life,” however irritating within the context of the invented world of Imagi*Nation, which promised to be extra honest. It does, nevertheless, seem to be the brand new management arrange includes extra cooperation between the nations.
Another process invitations audiences to partake in paper boat folding, however we don’t hit our quota so the nations get no healthcare. While most of the interactive parts of the piece are satisfying, I can’t assist however want that the supplies appeared extra related. Why all of those recyclables? What does folding paper must do with healthcare? When the viewers is given brief reply inquiries to reply through QR code, our responses are briefly displayed on the projector, however the dancers do nothing with them, the real interactiveness of the work step by step fading out because the present progresses.
Suddenly, one of many “working class” dancers breaks by means of into the opposite nation earlier than exiting the area down the middle aisle between the pews. She then joins the dancer who was spying within the opening scene (who has since been MIA) in a seemingly “foreign land” that’s displayed on the projector. Are they in exile? Meanwhile, the wall between Nations 1 and A is being creatively disassembled, and supplies are rearranged on the stage. The motion of the dancers on the projector has extra groove and groundedness, but in addition feels a bit contrived in its “tribal” power and might be extra refined.
The ultimate interactive second of the piece invitations the viewers to assist “rebuild” Nation 1A (or A!?) which has apparently joined collectively to type one nation. Most individuals stand up to assist whereas the dancer who spied originally frantically unfolds paper boats which are scattered between the pews, revealing letters written on them. This part feels a bit over carried out and disingenuous.
There is a confrontation between the members of Nation 1A and the “foreign” dancers utilizing the entrance pews––an curiously site-specific athletic battle scene that includes some floorwork. Eventually, the papers reveal phrases like Senses, Ideas, Concepts and Images. It is unclear what precisely we’re speculated to make of this.
Imagi*Nation has many distinctive strengths; it’s actually interdisciplinary and experimental, demonstrates a powerful command of storytelling by means of motion, and brings know-how and dwell efficiency collectively to productively develop the piece’s narrative. It does, nevertheless, depart some questions unanswered. For one, the allusions to Spanish language together with closing with a Spanish sentence are unclear. Why are we handed a Spanish pamphlet originally of the piece, and what’s the relevance of together with an extra language right here and there? And once more, what do the bodily supplies must do with the concepts being put ahead? The piece is nearly too bold, however I a lot desire ambition to a different reiteration of the identical, which Imagi*Nation actually was not.
By Charly Santagado of Dance Informa.
