Because the Scroll Says So, choreographed by Hailey Yaffee. Photo by Ryan Kwok.
Saint Mary’s College MFA in Dance
Cohort 5 Performance of The Collective
La Fevre Theatre, Saint Mary’s College of California
June 27, 2019, 4 PM
Review by Rachel Caldwell
The nine members of the fifth MFA in Dance cohort at Saint Mary’s College gave me a lot to chew on with The Collective, a series of nine concert dance works performed on June 27. It was my first-ever performance at the Moraga, California based university, and throughout the two-hour performance, I encountered a range of impressions, from fully enraptured to completely perplexed to somewhat bored at times. Though Cohort 5 is clearly a multi-talented group—multitasking as choreographers, performers, stage and house managers, lighting, sound and costume designers—the quality of the works varied dramatically.
The general tone of the show was heavy, with choreographers tackling issues such as oppression, racism, environmental destruction and repression. Highlights included creative staging and full commitment to the performance by all the dancers, yet I was not wowed. With a couple exceptions, the pieces were decreasingly impactful as the show went on, and I was left wanting to see more daring, experimentation and limit-pushing from this group of MFA candidates. Boundary-pushing, for me, could manifest in any number of ways, from literally pushing the body’s physical limitations with movement that is unfamiliar, to shifting the performer/audience relationship with a radical staging choice. However, in this regard I was left in the lurch.
Parya Saberi’s I Feel Sorry For The Garden, opened the show in a classroom a short walk from the theater. Crouched in a dimly lit classroom caged by four translucent screens arranged in a square around her, Saberi eschewed her background in Persian dance, in favor of weighty, deliberate gestures shrouded in a black veil. Her piece, which investigates the restrictions placed on Iranian women, conveyed the feeling of being trapped, both through the creative use of the screens and the sheer weightiness of her movement. By the time she came to be standing, I felt relieved. Yet even then, her energy pulled her toward the earth, and I was left with that desire for her to break free from invisible shackles. As transfixing as it was, I walked to the theater craving more. It felt like the beginning of something fruitful—perhaps a longer work later. I wanted to see more dynamic contrast in her movement choices and think it would be amazing to see more dancers brought into the piece.
Because the Scroll Says So, a duet choreographed by Hailey Yaffee, perplexed me. The set of long rolls of brown paper spread out across the stage with more sheets of crumpled paper strewn about intrigued me. It was the perfect example of how a bare space can be transformed with a seemingly simple prop. However, the choreography left me confused as to what the dancers’ relationship was to each other and what “the scroll” was indicating. I commend the dancers, Zoe Swanson and Marissa Pfaff, for their full commitment to the piece, including the bizarre facial expressions and an odd ending in which Swanson stuff crumpled paper up Pfaff’s dress. Overall there was a lack of cohesion though that didn’t sit well with me. The word scroll was an interesting choice, but it never became clear whether it was a biblical reference, allusion to some other ancient text, a set of rules or something completely different.
Oftentimes less is more, and nothing in The Collective conveyed that better than Jasmine Hamilton’s subtle, yet heartbreakingly beautiful, solo Forward…. Dressed in a white, backless halter-neck jumpsuit, Hamilton danced a graceful solo composed primarily of reaching and rippling gestures, crouched low to the floor. Her costume choice and choreographic choice to not once turn around and face the audience, created an interesting juxtaposition of being seen and not seeing. I felt invited to stare at her black skin, but also as an unacknowledged voyeur. The effect was incredibly powerful. Hamilton noted in the program, “Someone has to speak on behalf of oppression, suppression, progression and regression of black people in America.” Forward… conveyed exactly that with sophistication and authenticity.
Rachel Grisi Dugan’s trio titled MGDE 19 was a welcome moment of lightness after three darker pieces. Set to classical music by Vivaldi and Haydn, the choreography paid clear homage to the great Mother of Modern Dance herself, Martha Graham. Contraction and release, spirals of the spine and even the signature cupped hands looked like they had been taken straight out of a Graham work. As a bit of a modern dance history nerd, I enjoyed these references and the overall lighthearted energy of the piece yet wanted a bit more translation on Dugan’s part. How do you pay tribute to a beloved master without copying their gestures, concepts or movements?
In Wasted, Atalya Yeshayahu created a striking miniature dystopian world. Situated stage right, she performed a constantly shifting solo while pieces of paper, trash and other detritus steadily fell from above. Seemingly indifferent at the start, Yeshayahu’s movements shift from meditative to almost frenetic as more and more trash covers her over the course of the piece. I appreciated her daring staging and how she kept me guessing throughout the dance. Just when I would start to think the chaos of being covered in garbage was going to subside, a new flurry of refuse would rain down upon her. As with Hamilton’s Forward…, the imagery in Wasted was of the most impactful in the whole show. I’d love to see this continue to grow and morph into a full-scale, evening-length work. Yeshayahu had so much fruitful material to work with in both her staging and choice of gestures. I would be excited and curious to see her explore new ways to interact with the garbage throughout the dance.
The second half of The Collective began with Sojourn Soul, a group piece choreographed by Natalie Isaacs, which was rich in movement vocabulary such as sharp, repetitive arm gestures, but fading in my memory otherwise. Panel set pieces helped divide and then even shrink the stage space for the four dancers, creating a layer of interest to the staging, yet it wasn’t enough to redeem the relatively generic phrase-work. I was left guessing as to what I should have taken away it all and craving something explosive to happen. The piece flatlined for me and I struggled to stay engaged.
Jermain McGhee’s “Zions Remnant” was the second half’s main highlight. Danced to Solange’s groovy and soulful “Don’t Touch My Hair,” this solo brought out McGhee’s strength, grace and charisma as a performer. Dressed in an elaborate, colorful ensemble, complete with head wrap and long robe, he connected fluid reaches of his arms, spiraling turns and rippling spinal twists with staccato accents of the head or rapid weight shifts. There was an ebb and flow in his way of moving that I found really satisfying to watch. Additionally, he seemed to be enjoying himself, which after witnessing the strife and tension of many of the other works, was really refreshing. McGhee is a force to be reckoned with onstage and his confidence and clarity of action suggested that he knew it.
Loud Hands, a solo choreographed and danced by Felicia Fry-Flores, was clearly aiming to convey something intensely personal and emotional. What that something was though, was lost on me. Her body wrought with tension, one of her hands seemed to have a life of its own, shooting up to reach or grab, only to be forcibly pushed back down by the other hand. As in Yaffee’s Because the Scroll Says So, there was admirable commitment to the performance, but it failed to clearly convey the significance of the frantic hand gestures or discord between the right and left sides of her body.
I found Elizabeth Cozad’s In Light of to be an odd choice for the show closer. It was lovely, pleasant, and sweet, yet lacking in dynamic contrast. It put me into a sleepy state which is not how I expected or desired to feel at the end of The Collective. The numerous entrances and exits were a nice departure from other works, which mostly saw dancers remaining onstage throughout. However, the lullaby-esque track “Happiness Does Not Wait” by Olafur Arnalds seemed more like a film score than something that should be danced to at the collegiate level. Though the dancing was lovely, I was eager for Cozad to take some real choreographic risks and was left wanting. Maybe using a different piece of music with the same movement would have provided some dramatic contrast and conveyed something truly radical.
Rachel Caldwell is a dance teacher and freelance writer based in Berkeley, California. She is a contributing editor for Dance Teacher magazine, writer for Dance Magazine and is on the administrative staff at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley.
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