Levydance
Dance Place
Washington, DC
January 6, 2008
by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson
Sensuality and sexuality have been woven into Benjamin Levy’s choreography all along. This time, on the fourth visit of San Francisco’s Levydance to Washington, the libidinal was dominant. Not only was much of the program’s subject matter erotic, but costuming often highlighted bodily appeal. With three of the four visiting dancers being men, pan-sexuality and gay sexuality were prominent. This carnival fare was skillfully crafted even when the choreography dealt with brazen actions.
Go-go dancing, such as Washington used to have before the clubs that featured it were razed to make way for a new baseball stadium, became vulgar in its final years. Brash it had always been, but once upon a time it projected theatrical flair too and, every now and then, artistry. Legendary (but not apocryphal) is the stripper from early days who applied for a NEA grant and invited the entire Dance Panel to view his routine. Levydance’s “Nu Nu” reminded this town of that lost scene. The three guys come on first, barely but brightly clad, with teasing steps, undulating abdomens and shaking butts. They are all quite different though. Levy is the languid type, with a low center of gravity. Chris Hojin Lee is the sturdy sort, focused and watchful. Scott Marlowe, in the photo model mold, hits the high agile. The trio, not withstanding its assets, doesn’t faze Brooke Gessay because she’s so secure in her curvatious high stepping and balancing. This number’s unabashed first section is aimed directly at the audience. Then Gessay, going a bit waltzy, turns her attention to the guys, trying them out one at a time. Soon, though, there are two couples dancing and moments when two plus two adds up to a four leaf clover. “Nu Nu” is collaborative choreography by the company to music by Fabolous, Peggy Lee and Anita Harris. Both the work’s compactness (there’s no gratuitous repetition) and its meticulous imitation of things pornographic make the upshot proper.
Levy’s “Bone Lines” is about scary sex in the nightmare tradition of insect ballets like Doris Humphrey’s “Life of the Bee”, Jerome Robbins’ “The Cage” and John Taras’s “Piege de lumiere”. The curtains open on a stagescape of shadow and light. Discernible are four bizarrely encased yet attractive bodies straining at the harness/umbilicus that ties each to a central pod or hive (Rick Lee’s glistening mobile). The brood succeeds in breaking free, in being fully born, and all four fall to the floor exhausted. Reviving, they test their limbs and torsos. They also shed their casings (costume design by Colleen Quen), going thru developmental stages and sensual mating behavior until, as the piece ends, the life cycle begins to repeat itself – perhaps. The work’s strength is Levy’s light touch in devising movement that merely suggests the articulations of insects. Keeril Makan’s music, too, can be heard as alluding to other life forms. Levy’s vague ending, though, makes “Bone Lines” seem unfinished.
The program opened with a male solo and a male duo. The solo, “if this small space”, seemed intensely private. Marlowe experienced his body and the tight cube of light in which he was contained as if in solitary confinement. He stood quivering at first and it seemed that autovibration was the only movement available in that small a space. When he dared to go the limit, sliding and angling himself along the enclosing lines of his cell, tension increased. The duo, “Falling After Too”, had Marlowe and Lee grabbing at each other — catching hold of an arm, leg or shoulder and letting that lead to other movement in a contact improvisational way. Motivating the captive solo (choreography by Levy and Rachel Lincoln) seemed to be not just fear and the urge for escape but an autoerotic pleasure in executing the restricted motions. The duo (choreography by Levy and Darrin Wright), seemed propelled by two urges — to roughhouse and to cuddle.
Appearing in every piece on the bill, Scott Marlowe was very much the star of the show.
