The Foundry, Cambridge, MA.
December 4, 2022.
Boston-based dance artist Kristin Wagner stepped into the highlight. She defined that this program, Refract/Reframe, was The Click’s first indoor present (whereas they’ve performed outside and works in progress over COVID, and in addition contemplating that the group got here collectively in late summer season of 2021). Wagner additionally famous that this program is without doubt one of the first within the venue – a multimedia artwork area, one of many solely within the space that does that whereas together with dance (that latter half all too uncommon, famous Wagner).
All of this signaled chance, recent begins and new beginnings. These artists’ deep expertise and funding of their craft shone by simply as clearly. This mix of chance and newness with the considerate, ready and skilled: it created one thing fairly fascinating – shaped but fluid, foundationed but comfortable.
Angelina Benitez danced the primary piece, dancing on my own, a solo of true kinetic instinct, integration and immersion. She slowly walked ahead as lights got here up (lighting design by Elmer Martinez). As the rating rose, she moved into extra gesture and momentum pathways. Her physique was absorbed in a means that permit the motion resonate by her like a rung bell. At the identical time, there was nothing high-flying or spinning top-like at hand. It felt like that kind of athleticism wouldn’t serve her high quality, anyway, nor the work’s ambiance — a Norah Jones-easy, late night time jazz club-feel.
The finish introduced her full circle; to finish the work, she walked again out of the highlight because it lowered. Life is a sequence of cycles, peaks and troughs inside waves, I assumed. The second work introduced us one other solo, equally absorbed and impassioned: Leah Misano’s Inbetween. Misano danced virtuosic feats of flexibility and complicated pathways up and down from the ground. There was one thing cat-like to her mix of grounding and carry, one thing of that uniquely feline spring.
To Misano’s honest credit score, she additionally supplied beautiful slower moments of pausing, strolling, easy gesture, even falling to the ground. Pounding the viewers with virtuosity could make it lose its impact. There’s additionally solely a lot of the spectacular that we people can take up directly. Pedestrian moments, in distinction, can confer larger accessibility and humanity. With the abstraction at hand, I felt like I couldn’t know what she was so impassioned about. Yet, generally the fervour of absorption within the physique, when it’s sincere, is greater than sufficient.
The subsequent solo, your eyes are mirrors for the skies, got here from Lonnie Stanton (creation and efficiency). From lights up, she created a way of looking and reaching. Her bodily power prolonged past the stage, flowing out far previous her limbs. Her gaze – centered as a hawk’s, but additionally comfortable and receptive – was simply as clearly centered outward. There have been balletic and modern parts to her motion, however extra so I noticed her – as a human.
Again, throughout the abstraction right here, it was unclear precisely what she was trying to find or what was so fascinating her. Yet, her intentionality and honesty have been so very actual and clear, and it felt like that’s what really mattered. The lights got here down as she reached and gazed assuredly offstage once more. Her mysterious search would proceed.
Next got here a memorable and fascinating duet from Wagner and Tony Guglietti, cradled within the arms of myself (with you). The lights rose on them slowly rising from supine, till they have been standing. Their motion was angular, clear, sturdy, but additionally contained moments of extra rippling and undulating. The mix was entrancing. For a time they created recent gesture, after which got here to unison. They didn’t meet or acknowledge one another in any other case, which felt like a poignant distance.
With extra, if generally quick, moments of unison and nearer proximity in area, they did discover extra overt connection – and I questioned if that seed would come to full bloom. Either means, the motion vocabulary was fascinating. That mixed with the buzzing and instrumentals within the rating (by A Beautiful Chorus), within the ether was a way of repetition, cycles – and maybe even some kind of stagnancy. Was all of that maintaining them from remaining related? The distance between them opened and closed, ebbed and flowed.
My curiosity was all the best way piqued, whereas the easy fantastic thing about the work additionally saved my senses dazzled. All of the alternatives at hand right here, from motion vocabulary to construction, referred to as upon educational choreographic ideas extremely nicely – but not in a means that felt pedantic or “done before.” The work could possibly be an Exhibit A of easy methods to make these ideas breathe straightforward, breathe as their very own.
A second towards the top had them making a pinwheel, rotating round one another from a central axis of 1 arm joined to 1 arm: a shifting image talking 10,000 phrases about an unstated connection between them. The work ended with them hugging – that unstated connection at its peak. Had the cycle of the space between ebbing and flowing ceased? We within the viewers might determine that for ourselves – the kind of open query that may be extra pleasing and significant than a neat, tied-up-with-a-bow reply might ever be.
Closing out this system was Wagner’s make gentle: or how I survived all of it: a recent, intriguing piece of each childlike whimsy and critical rigor. To start the piece, six dancers confronted upstage: full with doorways sporting extra, and slanted, home windows (design additionally by Elmer Martinez). That mixed with the brights colours and patterns of their costumes, the aesthetic was refreshing unique and pleasantly off-kilter. The ensemble danced dealing with upstage for a time, making me take into consideration completely different views and lenses by which we see – and that affecting how we see.
The motion was easeful and built-in, layered and wealthy however with nothing to “prove”. These artists know that it may well communicate for itself, so there’s no must push for “more.” In the primary of many chapter breaks, a duet merged right into a trio. There was a way of play and investigation, with dancers’ selections impacting these of their friends.
All of this constructed a childlike high quality, in the most effective sense of the phrase: a lightweight, joyful, easeful mutual creation of the parameters of play, kids’s play at its greatest. Yet, from parts from the instrumental rating and a few weighted motion, there was additionally a somberness within the air. The work walked that line, creating simply the suitable bittersweet mix – like the most effective Pixar films do.
Those weren’t the one atmospheric qualities at hand, nevertheless; with a memorable and (at instances) strikingly athletic solo from Rachel Linsky, it felt like one thing mysterious was breaking by. She moved with that sense of exploration, her gaze clear and centered. Other dancers got here to encompass her and be a part of her in unison motion, like they have been following her instance: the person guiding the neighborhood.
The motion right here was curvilinear, round but additionally serpentine, with beautiful pedestrian moments as nicely. Moments of larger ease could make athleticism imply extra. Later sections introduced hanging duet sections, at sure factors additionally with the intriguing spatial pressure of a soloist aside from the pairs. The motion got here to really feel wavelike, overcurve and undercurve providing that satisfying smoothness of a skater in a half-pipe.
A few memorable solos punctuated the work’s ending. Angelina Benitez danced one other along with her signature silky, but sturdy motion high quality. Alexandria Nunweiler carried out a solo with a satisfying understated high quality. She knew simply the trouble to use to make the motion ripple by her and keep built-in. Interspersed round and inside these solos was a great deal of pedestrian motion and purposeful gaze from the ensemble – creating a sense of neighborhood cohesion.
Structurally, this was all developed thoughtfully and rigorously. There have been sufficient of these chapter breaks to maintain a dynamism at hand, however not a lot as to go away something underdeveloped. Overall, the work rode the stability of sufficient, however not too a lot happening – participating, even enrapturing, however not overwhelming. It was all a part of that considerate rigor, but additionally youthful sweetness and accessibility that characterised the work.
Bringing the work full circle, dancers confronted upstage once more, earlier than these door with off-kilter home windows. The lights lowered on that picture, additionally with a religious feeling within the ether from the choral rating. In this second, because the work concluded, my thoughts spun with questions and chance: of ease, of rigor, of neighborhood, of the person. Yet there was additionally a lot to get pleasure from merely as stunning, in and of itself. In my expertise, essentially the most refined, significant artwork has each potentials.
This program supplied a 3rd ingredient, like an sudden ingredient that makes the dish excellent: of newness, of surprise, of starvation for discovery. With such a potent, riveting mix, I’m all ears, eyes, and all the pieces else potential for what The Click has to supply subsequent. As we additionally step ahead into a brand new regular, it’s a brilliant new horizon. A sunny, clear day may simply be in retailer.
By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.
