HQ Review: The Big Muddy Dance Company’s “Awakening” (Program B)

At the opening of Awakening, the newest production by The Big Muddy Dance Company, the curtain opened to a dark stage and the sound of drums. The lights came up on two dancers dressed in blue suits, backs to us, in a street lamp-like glow. Separated from us by a screen, the dancers appeared slightly hazy. Jazz music played as the first dancer began to move: rolling shoulders emanated out into fluid, full-body unfurling. He made contact with his partner and she too came to life with sliding stretches and turns. They walked towards the audience as the screen rose and the light changed to a stark white, exposing the stage wall behind them. Eventually, the full company of 14 worked their way onto stage. Like the jazz music which inspired it, the movement in Something About a Dream, choreographed by Kirven Douthit-Boyd, was at once bouncy and taught, fluid and sculptural, playful and longing. The piece moved, ebbed, flowed, and filled the stage to the brim with color and sound. It ended as it began: two dancers facing back, silhouettes softened by the screen. As music and lights faded they continued to move. The dance, one supposes, went on without us.

Alchemic Us, choreographed by Thang Dao, is a series of duets by four dancers. The bold, boisterous movement of the previous piece is replaced here by clipped, clean lines and lifts, offering a pleasant counterpoint. Choreographically the opening was the most memorable: lights came up to dancers standing in a neat row right at the edge of the wings. As soon as we register their presence they dart off the stage, one at a time, as if surprised to see us there; an unusual beginning connoting play and curiosity. Nearing balletic at times, the formal shapes and catch and release rhythm of the partnering is much of what we have come to expect from contemporary duet, and was performed with agility and exactness.

In The Calling the curtain came up to striking visual effect: an enormous white gown nearly filled the stage, and in the center, stark against a black background, a dancer stood, erupting from the fabric. Molly Rapp performed the role on Sunday afternoon. She began facing away from the audience, her back bare with hints of a sparkling leotard. She carved her arms and spine through space with strength and angularity, building long, linear shapes which melted and gave way to flowing movement. The solo is not an original work for the company but a restaging of one by Jessica Lang made in 2005 for Ailey II (as the program notes). For a piece which is so paired down, so carefully distilled, and so centered on the body of the performer, rising above us drenched in white like a statue or spector, it is worth reflecting on the body we are seeing. A wonderful and complicated thing about dance is how it cannot be separated from the performer; one becomes part of the other. And it is hard to deny that bodies resist neutrality. They signify, awaken association, and imply meaning. What, then, happens when different kinds of bodies are placed into a role? Does the meaning alter? Are we suddenly considering hierarchies of bodies, or the chimerical notion of “purity” where once we would have conjured ideas of rapture or transcendence? The image on stage here is held up, literally perched above us, perhaps as an icon to encourage adulation. But in the choreography the dancer herself is eventually entangled and immobilized by her cumbersome surroundings, and though her brief attempts to move away from center stage are thwarted, the final gesture towards the sky could be perceived as a call for relief. Perhaps the call will be answered.

In Vanity Fare, a piece by choreographer Marcus Jarrell Willis, five dancers, in formal prom-like attire, appeared frozen in angular poses atop five pedestals. A dancer wandered on stage observing the statues, joined by another who acts as ringleader to this dancing circus. The performers on pedestals came to life with sharp intricate movements; dolls suddenly animated. Absurdity ensued as the doll dancers moved through comical and exaggerated poses, while taking it all very seriously. The observing dancer jumped in and out of the dancing and eventually stole a place on a pedestal, leaving one sad doll with no place to stand. The displaced doll performed a solo and despite the silly premise (a doll with nowhere to stand), they became, in the movement, a breathing, lamenting human being. Their movement was full and undulating, falling and recovering with breath and weight, and exacted an effective change in tone signaling to us that there may be more going on here than just funny dolls. The music gives way to a voice dispensing advice for young people. With humor but mostly dry sincerity the voice offered: “know the power and beauty of youth,” “enjoy your body,” “wear sunscreen,” and “do not read beauty magazines.”
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Perhaps the most impactful moment of Vanity Fare was the duet between Keenan Fletcher and AJ Joehl. Their connection was vulnerable, curious, and suggested mutuality. Gone were the pristine partnering and bombastic movements from earlier pieces, instead we were left with something tender and human in the way she leaned her head on his shoulder, held him around the waist to sway their bodies, or how he danced with her but then looked away. The opportunity for delicate connection could represent remedy for a circus doll's ugly reality of life as a product, love as a commodity, and youth as commercialized perpetuity. It returned us to what it means to be in a body: flawed and yielding. The piece speaks acutely to the plight of living things existing inside oppressive capitalist structures; beings which are, in the end, without price and terribly fleeting.

If Vanity Fare asserted humanity over objectivity, then Playfolk wholeheartedly embraces that humanity in all its messy glory. The piece, choreographed by Bradley Shlever, began abruptly during the ten minute break, with house lights on and curtain still closed. A dancer wandered out, with music playing rowdy and jovial, onto the thin sliver of stage available between the closed curtain and the first row of seats. Dancers filed in after him one or two at a time dressed in mostly neutral-toned clothes reminiscent of the 1940s. These were definitely not pristine dolls on pedestals. Their movements were spirited and at times mischievous, recalling the awkward sincerity of middle school dances or the way one dances to a favorite song when all alone. The curtain rose and they were given space to really carry on. Occasional full company unison sections, with robust formations and large movements, were visually refreshing, The choreography overall was unruly: at times sweeping and full bodied with recognizable dance vocabulary, at others disordered and raucous like kids at play. Full of humor and beauty, effort and rage and a perfect companion to the call to embrace our humanity; these dancers seemed absolutely thrilled to be human. To be a body: what a mess. And what fun.