DANCE REVIEW: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at 2011 Nazareth Dance Fest
Quintessential post-modern dance was on display in all its abstract glory at Nazareth College Arts Center's Callahan Theater Friday, July 12, as the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performed to nearly a full house as the headliner of the Art Center's 2011 Dance Festival.
Repetition, repetition, repetition was the theme of the evening as phrases of movement were cleverly reversed, inverted, sped up, slowed down, and otherwise played upon in seemingly endless variation by two pairs of extremely talented dancers. Each couple performed one of the two long duets that comprise the full-length piece "Body Against Body," one of the company's earliest and most pivotal works.
In a post-performance discussion, Jones likened his choreographic style to Cubism, citing the art movement's multi-faceted presentation of images; its fractured planes and angles; and its openness to personal interpretation. The spoken text in "Body Against Body," Jones said, can be understood as a Dadaist affect, the way, say, a block of newsprint splashed across a Cubist painting draws out the disconnect between images and meaning.
Each duet in "Body Against Body" features complex and intense interplay between its dancers including rigorous physical exchanges, mime-like displays of motivation and emotion, and role reversals. As in physical theater, props and spoken word -- both by the dancers and in voiceover -- are used.
Task-based movement runs strongly through the first duet, "Monkey Run Road," danced Friday by Talli Jackson and Erick Montes. The men enter pushing a large, table-like crate. Once they have it center stage, they continue to utilize it in their performance, clambering up onto it to execute gymnastic-type movements, then dropping down to sit, legs hanging casually over the side, before leaping to execute a series of individual movements that they will repeat in myriad variations before leaving the stage. Montes moved with the speed and sinewy power of a bobcat, pinwheeling his arms into a blur of motion, a move he repeated often in the piece. Jackson possessed the controlled strength of a larger cat, a lion, perhaps, stretching slowly in the midday sun, holding difficult shapes without apparent strain.
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