The Joyce Theater, New York, NY.
January 24, 2023.
Dancers stride throughout the stage in Sharon Eyal’s signature relevé stroll (legs principally straight with knees bending barely upward between steps), fingers framing their stomach button and elbows symmetrically akimbo. Although there’s something trend present about their diagonal passes, they put on solely nude leotards and knee excessive socks. Micro head actions, saluting gestures and degree adjustments steadily accumulate on high of their constant steps, which comply with a heavy percussion beat –– the opening of composer Ori Lichtik’s unrelenting digital soundscape. Some dancers let expression flood their face and even in its pattern-based precision, nice, momentary asynchronies reward the attentive watcher. According to this system word, “one can see from the same thing how different we are” –– absolutely the uniqueness of every particular person. When the total group provides dynamic hip actions to their steps, the choreography’s spectacular restraint is rewarded. This is German firm, tanzmainz, making its Joyce debut with Sharon Eyal’s Der Faust Award-winning piece, Soul Chain.
The group clusters collectively, two grooving dancers coated and uncovered by the clump because it breathes out and in. The stepping by no means stops –– even the breakout solos preserve its regular rhythm –– and from magnetic grand plié chest pops to arch toss lifts to sharp pulsing cat-cows (with one dancer trying entrance, a spotlight motif which happens just a few occasions all through the piece), the motion feels very unfree for all its groove. Eyal says she creates based mostly on what’s intuitive within the second, “almost like an animal.”
Despite the obvious beating hearts earlier than me and the humanity implied by the thought of nudity that’s constructed into the costumes, I really feel like I’ve entered the uncanny valley; so-called animalistic motion is tempered by its cleanliness and feels extra associated to Artificial Intelligence than one thing actually “natural.” If these dancers are something aside from humanoid, then they should be bugs, a colony of bugs working collectively in spastic synergy. The work is overwhelmingly frontal, and I’m left questioning, “Who is the audience to these dancers? Why are they performing for us?” Perhaps we’re the collective queen of the ant colony.
Around a 3rd of the way in which into the piece, a feminine dancer breaks from the group to carry out an Eyal-walk-inspired solo on the spot because the others fade into darkness upstage. Her neck is cell and her physique pulses with power, however the solo appears to go on longer than any earlier part and she or he stays away from the group even after she’s not the function. It someway appears like she’s been ousted because the group performs abrupt shifts with astounding management. A dancer entrance middle does a sequence of backbreaking ring kicks, and even because the footwork complexifies, there’s quite a lot of area holding in the remainder of the physique. When the group lastly spreads out, the soloist is reintegrated and I can’t assist however really feel a way of reduction.
After a spatially advanced starting, there at the moment are nearly no formation adjustments. The motion additionally not often displays the adjustments within the music, and the ceaseless beat by no means noticeably adjustments tempo. At least one dancer steps to the rhythm always, and the piece’s unyielding precision leaves no room for error (until the dancer owns their mistake sufficient to render it imperceptible to the viewers). The intimate particulars of the dancers respiratory and sweating, amplified by the costuming and less complicated moments within the choreography, add one other layer to the work’s growth.
A male dancer bobbles his head backward and forward for what appears like an eternity. It begins to change into complicated to have a look at, and jogs my memory of the expertise of claiming the identical phrase again and again till it not is smart. Repetitious voices within the music additionally begin to sound like they’re chanting particular phrases (2010? Who wants that?) –– am I going insane?
Minutes later, solely the bobble-headed dancer is shifting, and I really feel real fear for his neck, which has been drilling the beat for a number of lengthy minutes. The discomfort of predictability is palpable as I watch for the reduction of it stopping. Another lengthy clump part that includes a dancer leaping dramatically within the again exhibits the dancers as cogs in a fancy machine –– however even cogs have their individuality. As the group strikes upstage, the dancer’s neck bobbles develop greater and larger, involving extra of his physique. The power rises because the curtain slowly falls and the music fades out.
According to Eyal, “We find a big loneliness in us confronted with the love of life… Everyone is living their own life and is ending it alone. Soul Chain represents a creation about desire. You see the pain, the sweat, how the inner being is trying to find its way to the outside… Basically it’s all about love, about the love to the others, to yourself, to the space which surrounds you, love to everything. Love is like tissue.”
This is a phenomenal sentiment, however upon leaving the theater, the very last thing on my thoughts is love. Instead, the motion feels fortified –– not fairly held, however not uncooked both. The marching dancers that echo by means of my thoughts really feel militant, cultish, nearly horny, however definitely not held collectively by love. Nevertheless, Soul Chain definitely left me with a lot to consider.
By Charly Santagado of Dance Informa.
