Andrea Pardi’s Human. Photo by Surabhi Bharadwaj.
Saint Mary’s College MFA in Dance Program Presents Awakenings
By Stephanie Unger
On Sunday, January 28th, 2018, a new cohort of MFA Dance candidates from Saint Mary’s College filled the stage at Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco. With a program entitled “Awakenings,” the evening featured pieces from the students’ first academic term that tackled a variety of existential questions of society and self. Artistic Director Rosana Barragan noted in the program that the nine choreographers represented a wide range of styles and backgrounds, which added to the program’s feeling of acceptance and inclusivity.
The first piece, ToGetHer, was designed to have a variety of interpretations, inviting the audience to watch without trying to see anything in particular. The title itself could either be “To Get Her” or “Together.” Choreographer Alexandra Beaty cleverly used three contrasting pieces of music throughout the dance in order to help viewers see the same movement from different perspectives.
The duet opened with Hanz Zimmer's dramatic music. The dancers’ movement appeared shaky and uncertain, perhaps effects of unsteady nerves as they pushed each other towards a destination. They fixated on that spot, almost in competition with one another, but needing each other’s guidance. The atmospheric music featured a ticking clock, and big swells added to the tension of their relationship.
With a musical shift, Justin Bieber’s popular upbeat song “Sorry,” the dancers began the duet again, repeating the same movement they had just performed. The music emphasized percussive motions and hip swivels in the choreography, giving the duet a sexier and more romantic quality. This time, when the dancers fell into each other’s arms, rather than feeling supportive in the first iteration, the collapsing appeared to be an apology. The audience could interpret this new relationship however they’d like: what I saw seemed more like a couple going through a troubled time than the epic journey of the first section.
The last piece of music used in ToGetHer, the theme from Titanic, brought out sweeping curves and tenderness of the choreography. The lifts were timed perfectly to moments of the song that are so well known, aligning with imagery that many would associate with the movie, such as the scene on the bow of the boat with Jack and Kate. As the dancers finished out the choreography, which we had seen before, the music dropped out and the lights dimmed, signaling a somewhat anticlimactic end of the piece. Perhaps in a future investigation, Beaty could use the entire amount of choreography for each piece of music, to fully give each section the same weight.
Square of Opposition by Melisa V. Cervantes followed. Cervantes’ program note explained how the piece explored trauma residing in the body, rather than in the event, and how we navigate through traumatic times.
The dancer, dressed in a dark velvet dress with visibly wet hair, began the piece with her back away from the audience. She made awkward movements, isolating different body parts, representing a fractured self. The movement continued, rapidly; Square of Opposition was full of so much movement that it was difficult to follow the choreographer’s intention. Interjections of literal gestures, like a pointed finger or a pose with the hands to the solar plexus, provided more explanation. The most striking moments were the more simple ones, such as leading with the crown of the head and following a square path.
Considering that the piece was about trauma, more pause and tenderness would be welcome. The choreographer’s intention came in glimpses: an outreached porte de bras to give the impression of moving outside the body; swirling and losing focus to exude overwhelm; unstable teetering. Whenever the dancer slowed down significantly, such as in a series of rolling floor work, the piece commanded more attention.
The sound design by Miguel Cervantes, Melisa’s composer husband, complemented the piece with the use of rain and spoken word. With such a great amount of movement, the viewer had to choose between following the piece via the choreography or the text. However, the sound did add to the chaos of the piece. If the viewpoint is that trauma is processed in a nonlinear format, then the various elements of Square of Opposition contributed to a successful execution of that interpretation.
Another piece that dealt with processing trauma, Pathways by Lisa Tenorio, was next. The program notes spoke to tiny soothing rituals, which could be seen as the piece opened with the dancers performing gestures such as rubbing or brushing the palms. Each person had a different method of dealing with their trauma. Tenorio spoke in the talk back that she observed herself and her loved ones in order to develop this movement. By repeating these gestures, the audience was able to process that these movements were meant to be ritualistic.
The choreography that followed this opening sequence mixed beautiful sweeping motion with desperate falls and contractions. The dancers caught one another and held hands. While this portion of the piece was visually pleasing, it didn’t have enough interaction to develop the relationships and characters. If Tenorio would like the characters to be more supported by each other, there could be more partner work and interaction between all three dancers. If she would like them to seem isolated in their grief, perhaps she could insert more separation and space from each other on the stage.
Sonia Chapa presented Breath — a study on how breath moves us through life. Chapa set the tone for the bold piece with a chair placed in a circle of light. Dressed in flamenco attire, providing some foreshadowing, she used her breath to lead the movement as she reached and released. She moved around the chair with undulating motions until she broke the breathing pattern, stood up, and began walking with her back to the audience in order to see her back expanding when her lungs filled with air. At that point, she could have continued the yogic breath cycling even as she walked, being propelled by her exhalations and taking as much time as necessary.
The piece shifted as Chapa began an impressive flamenco dance. Throughout this sequence, the most effective moments were when her breath was obvious. The more formal and complicated portions were all performed with a very closed mouth and very little attention given to her breath. Even though the dissonance between the chair portion and the flamenco portion gave the impression that these were two separate pieces, perhaps that was part of the intent—to highlight the difference between paying attention to breath patterns and then not, or that the chair symbolized a place of rest. The chair was her place of final rest in the piece, as she exhaled all of her energy as if letting go of her last breath.
As the lights came up for Andrea Pardi’s Human, the audible reaction from the audience could not be ignored. The group of six dancers, piled together in a clump, was enveloped by skin tone cat suits. The dancers were anonymous shells of people, covered in variations of skin color from head to toe, including their faces. The bodies began to breathe as one unit as thumping music began to play.
Since the dancers’ faces could not be seen, the choreography relied on many arm gestures to express emotion: hands held up as if to show that one was not armed, extending the arms forward to show veins, and brushing the hands on the skin. Skin was the main feature of the piece, from the movement to costumes to the message. Hearing the words - “I am human, nothing more than human” - further drove the clarity of the choreographer’s intention: to remove the racial filter for us to see each other only as people. Considering the message, it was not surprising that the piece ended with the dancers unzipping their cat suits to reveal that the color of their costume did not match the color of the skin on their bodies.
The costumes and music for Human gave a definite cinematic quality. Even the structure of the choreography, such as a tendency to have a soloist in the middle with the rest of dancers, around almost as back up dancers, gave the impression of a music video. This style seemed better suited for a film than live performance, and the choreographer seemed to agree. At the talkback she spoke of her next step being to make a video, which through creative camera work would probably allow her to enhance the confrontational elements and make the piece more challenging for the audience.
Un- by Katie Ginn brought the focus back from societal views of the outer self to those of the internal and inner self. The program noted that this piece tackled “that which is unwanted, unused, unresolved.” Ginn asked the question: “How do we feel when those –uns are presented as a gift?”
The lights came up on a wrapped box, a literal present, laying on the stage. Ginn, who was the solo dancer in the piece, wore her hair soft and loose, her pink dress flowing, the music pretty. With the subject matter of the piece, confronting unwanted qualities, the setting that Ginn created posed quite a juxtaposition.
She rolled around and arched over the box, but never touched it. She fell away from the box, looked back at the box, scooted towards the box. As she moved from low level to medium level through expanding and contracting, she continued to cautiously glance at the box whenever it was in her peripheral vision. No matter what she did, she was drawn to the box even if she couldn’t make contact with it.
Suddenly, the audience started asking the question, “What’s in the box?” Audience members from all sides of the house repeated the question so that it echoed throughout the theater, creating quite a tense and pressured environment. Finally, Ginn exploded by screaming, “I don’t know!” in a fed-up and exasperated tone.
The piece ended with her reaching towards the box tenderly and timidly. Even if Ginn doesn’t know what is in the box, it would be exciting to develop what happens after she opens it. As a next step, Ginn could challenge herself to take the qualities that are housed in the box and expose those in the dance rather than keep them as this unseen and unexposed secret.
Other by Grace Maxwell spoke about representing duality in oneself. So many people are more than one race, gender, ethnicity, or culture, yet are told to fit into one box. The three dancers wore shirts with boxes on the front, as if waiting to be checked off on a form. Robotic voices prompted them to answer questions on how they define themselves. The repeated question of “What are you?” drilled in the pressure to identify oneself with such finite terms.
The three bodies all moved differently from each other and responded uniquely to the questions posed by the voiceover. One commonality between the dancers was that they all embodied several supposedly conflicting qualities: masculine and feminine, indiscernible race or ethnicity, varying physical capabilities. However, the robotic voice insisted, “You must choose one.”
As the voices overlapped, the dancers struggled and became confused and broken, unable to function. “I am nobody,” a real, non-robotic voice spoke. They huddled in the corner, as if in time out, held in the spotlight, under examination by society. The ending gave the impression that we are helpless to develop an environment that would be accepting of our dualities, since the dancers finish in a defeated pose.
Taylor Santero took on the broad subject of time in her piece Ellipses. Santero was also the performer and sound designer, mixing the drops of water with spoken word throughout the piece to develop the different ideas of how time affects and perhaps tortures our lives. The voiceover transitioned from a list of daily events for each moment of the day, from the mundane morning routine to fitting in classwork during the workday, to children speaking about the concept of time, and a scientific definition of time. Perhaps, as a way to further develop the piece, Santero could cast multiple dancers to represent the different voices.
Santero’s simple walking pattern allowed the audience to focus on the text while each of her gestures and expressions cleverly reflected the words that were being spoken. During the children’s responses, Santero mimicked their emotions: she paused to think when they were contemplative, she flipped her hair when they were flippant, she glided a hand through the air on the words “smooth.” In the very last gesture, Santero looked at her wrist as if looking at a watch in order to put the final punctuation that we are always concerned with the passing of time.
The show ended with Inner Response-Outer Debate by Lacin Keles. Three dancers of different skin colors represented a variety of cultures in order to discuss cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation. It appeared that each dancer embodied a specific movement style, as if to house their culture in their movement, however these styles could be much more distinct from each other.
As the dancers watched each other, they gathered information from each other and incorporated that new information into their dance. The choreography became what appeared to be a mix of Indian dance and Western contemporary dance. Even though the dancers supported each other from time to time, more connectivity would help to show the merging of styles. Coaching the performers to theatrically, to show an interest in and care for one another, would further establish emotional connections and appreciation for each other. A mixture of voices layered into the sound design, further representing the “melting pot” that Keles created with the choreography.
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Stephanie Unger is a writer, dance artist, arts administrator, and mother of two. She is originally from Florida, spent several years in Chicago as a performer, and now resides in Oakland. Follow her dance work on Instagram: @stephanieungerdance
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