Mass Motion Dance Studios, Brighton, MA (seen through livestream).
April 26, 2025.
An evening-length work with a robust prevailing theme and environment, or a “mixed bill” of various works: I get pleasure from each constructions for what they every should get pleasure from. The latter usually additionally comes with a thread or threads that join the person works: in temper, in perspective, in style. Yet, generally, not all the time – as with Alive Dance Collective’s SHIFT – such applications supply a notable smorgasbord of works, with none specific high quality or “approach” prevailing.
Variety is the spice of life, they are saying. These applications display that such a bounty can delight the artistic palette with many various flavors to savor. The Boston-based group is actually a part of town’s bounty of smaller-scale, but stalwart dance corporations – persevering with so as to add their very own sugar and spice with every new program.
The memorable up stream, from Alexandria Nunweiler in collaboration with the dancers, opened this system. Nocturnal crickets and ethereal choral singing within the rating (“Choir and Crickets” by David Russo) crammed the house. Dancers moved low to the bottom, rolling in unbiased timing, then discovered unison gesture as they rose. In the quiet of mystical evening, one thing gelled. Concentric rotating circles enhanced that sense of cohesion rising. Spines have been fluid and serpentine as they modified relationship with ranges in house and with one another.
A shift in vitality got here with a rating change; their timing quickened to match the music (“Aqueous Transmission” by Incubus). A decrescendo got here after the crescendo, nevertheless, and shortly they once more moved gradual and straightforward. That cohesion discovered, they collectively moved by this cycle of rising and falling vitality. up stream exemplified work that’s merely viscerally evocative, actually lots to please and intrigue.
Twilight People, danced and choreographed by Shira Weiss: a solo seemingly with deep significance, but additionally abstraction making it obtainable to assorted meanings. Weiss, seated on a plain bench, repeated a gesture whereas voices within the rating rose robust and clear. As an method used all through the work, with assorted motion vocabulary at totally different factors, the repetition turned virtually meditative.
Before lengthy, motion grew in dimension, energy and the shapes layered inside it. Weiss learn from a prayer scarf after which donned it over their shoulders, swaying backbone laterally because the tassels rippled. They returned to the bench on the finish. In its devotional, soothingly meditative high quality, it was a refreshingly distinctive work.
Audrey Hatas’ Murmuration continued the candy and soothing choices, with a contact of implied historical past and custom. The dancers got here off quasi balletic, in skirts and with actions reminiscing the classical – but have been additionally barefoot and free in their very own qualities: spines straightforward fairly than totally lifted, ft softly expressed fairly than “cashew”-pointed.
Timing and staging introduced related qualities: deliberately formed, but not compelled. The life already contained in the clay of the dancers was revealed, as Michelangelo would possibly muse. In the softening of the classical and the natural, soulful really feel at hand, the work mirrored one thing of Isadora Duncan’s work and ethos.
The subsequent work, Roll, Flip, Toss, Jam by Katrina Conte in collaboration with the dancers, introduced us into the delightfully zany. The duet companions, Brenna Banister and Katherine Berman, dance-partied it out whereas mixing in some conventionally modern footwork for good measure. Keen kinetic shaping developed as a jazzy voice rose within the rating: reverse facings, canon timing, motion vocabulary shuffled and reassembled. There was enjoyable, but in addition rigor. And so it’s with art-making; we discover the stability between the 2 – and, finally, the ultimate product of our work.
Lila Ruth Klaus’ Rage/Release got here subsequent, providing softness but in addition vitality and tenacity. Ensemble members gathered into the house with their very own motion, becoming a member of the rising form of posed our bodies. Movement constructed: dancers coming out and in of unison, rising tall after which discovering the ground, gesturing in direction of and away from each other.
Kinetic ease crammed the stage, but – undergirded by a repeated concord within the rating (“The King” by Anjimile) – agitation resonated by the house. Even so, even with their pace escalating in accordance with the rating and within the face of that sonic turbulence, they embodied ease. The ensemble ended with a unison clap, arms up excessive. They would stand robust in being the calm amidst an setting making an attempt to strip them of it.
With tender acoustic and a wistful voice within the rating, motion a bit extra ethereally balletic, the environment was softer with Paige Befeler’s Wildflower – coming simply after intermission. But there was additionally a pathos: spines releasing again after which whipping ahead with a change in path, steps ahead and again evoking uncertainty, gaze clear and emotive. At the identical, the group’s cohesion was clear. Whatever they have been going through, collectively or individually, they have been on no account alone – and that felt simply as significant.
Alexandria Nunweiler’s Subtly Alice, a dance movie, ushered in a bit extra intriguing abstraction. Montage video interweaved exploration of sunshine and shadow with motion: gesture, bigger physique shapes, easy gaze with moments of stillness. A mysterious and chilling string chord enhanced the thriller within the ether, enigma filling all senses (rating from Agnes Obel).
Accented gesture, repeated time and again, complemented ambient rigidity. Hands sliding down a wall evinced a looking amidst the stress and abstraction – maybe discovering grounding and understanding when it appeared in any other case in brief provide. To finish, the digicam regarded down on a spiraling staircase, a dancer rising from their seat – maybe searching for such decision for themselves.
1519, 1216, choreographed and danced by Katherine Berman, saved alive and properly the uncertainty of the prior piece – but additionally added one thing extra somber and soulful. On knees, Berman gestured: reaching, looking, built-in and commanding in her motion. Rising, she introduced that search farther out into house. Arms folding reminisced prayer: a devotional high quality to her search. Finally she rested, seated and looking out ahead. Rest is, in any case, important for that searching for to proceed.
Even extra of that somber soulfulness got here with the following ensemble piece, Marina Villeneuve’s Reflecting Light; longing within the motion high quality met the singer’s crooning within the rating (“Reflecting Light” from Sam Phillips). That imbued one thing nostalgic, dreamy in reminiscence. Nostalgia can really feel greatest in group, which the dancers created by unified motion and a way of unstated connection.
The multifaceted Aleph? Bet., from Brenna Banister in collaboration with the dancers, closed this system. Appropriately sufficient, it introduced in lots of qualities, themes and approaches of previous works. Repeated motion introduced one thing meditative. Speech within the rating supplied character and humor, which the dancers skillfully made visceral by pantomime and theatricality. Their gestures easily met the timing of speech and chimes within the soundscape (“The Linguist” by Ben Cuba).
It was all summary sufficient that I wasn’t fairly positive what precisely was occurring – other than a obscure sense of an elder guiding, and generally scolding these of their care, in addition to a basic feeling of playfulness. Yet I used to be delighted nonetheless, no matter precisely might need been enjoying out earlier than us.
What was crystal clear, nevertheless, was a way of particular person character for every persona simultaneous with group unity. Those are the perfect instances with mates: when all really feel a part of a collective, but additionally free to be them. That playfulness, pleasure, and connection was a stunning notice on which to finish.
Whatever the method, regardless of the environment, regardless of the “vibe”, it can be nice if we’re in it collectively. Thank you and congratulations to Alive Dance Collective for presenting many flavors to get pleasure from, and accomplish that in unified group: important, but too usually missing.
By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.
