Women on the Way Festival
Marisa Mariscotti/Leonore Deaton
Aura Fischbeck Dance
The Pfeifle Dance Project
The Garage
San Francisco, CA
January 10, 2008
by Rita Felciano
copyright © by Rita Felciano
“Women on the Way” (WOW) is the Bay Area’s two-week mini-festival which ties us through the January doldrums until Dance kicks back into high gear later in the month, most prominently this year with the start of San Francisco Ballet’s 75th Anniversary season on January 29. In the past the programs’ mix of theater, circus, music and dance by younger women artists was one of WOW’s major attractions. It afforded cross-disciplinary viewing that often made for unusual and stimulating juxtapositions. Unfortunately, this year Footloose, the presenting organization, abandoned that format.
For its eighth incarnation WOW is presenting all the dance offerings in a separate performance space, the one-year old The Garage, close to the downtown area. On the first program were a duet for and by Leonore Deaton and Marisa Mariscotti, two pieces by Aura Fischbeck Dance and The Pfeifle Dance Project. If it hadn’t been for Fischbeck, this would have been dreary opening.
Fischbeck fits WOW’s profile perfectly: young, female, with something of a modest track record and in need to be presented. In other words she is “emerging.” Most importantly, Fischbeck also has talent, the beginnings of a voice and an understanding of choreography as craft and the discipline to restrict and shape movement material.
“Relay”, set to well chosen music by Deep Space Network and Euphoria, featured Leigh Riley, Sara Pfeifle and Fischbeck in an energetically performed three-part trio of canonic and overlaid phrases, lusciously danced with a wonderful sense of spontaneity about them. Every so often the dancers broke into walkabouts and circular runs as if to wipe the space clean only to pick up again on exploring previously seen and new material. Part one’s spaciousness gave way to a close-together back-to-back trio which opened into bodies flopping over each. The strong beat in the last section opened up the dancer’s diagonal trajectory with a sense of their pushing restrictions away. A billowing breathiness nicely softened some of “Relay’s” highly controlled structure.
“Compass”, Fischbeck’s solo for herself, impressed with the simplicity of material that was convincingly elaborated on. She is an expressively pliant dancer, with a willingness to go for purity over bravura. Much of the movement, live as well as on the second section’s video, came from arms that rotated—in unison, fast, slow, sequentially, like the hands of a clock. The video, by Chris Wise, took Fischbeck to the ocean where her dancing, much related to that on stage, fused with sand and waves. The final headstand in which the legs took over the turning responsibility was pushing the metaphor just a little far. That needs rethinking.
Unfortunately, the evening’s other two works proved to be much less involving. Deaton and Mariscotti’s “Home (In)” had one of them on top of a little house, encased by a picket fence. The other dancer tried, at first unsuccessfully, to pry her loose from what, I presume was a place of safety. After veering into the open space, both women retreated to the top of the little house, eating, channel switching and listening to an (as it turned out, false) account of a terrorist attack. There was a stiff-legged awkward to their dancing which, perhaps was meant to convey youth and naiveté. To these eyes it just looked unskilled.
Though I didn’t sense her absence, Pfeifle’s meandering “Unbecoming,” apparently lacked one of the dancers. So it’s probably unfair to look at this work as a finished product. With its shifting duets and periodic unisons I did feel that Pfeifle was attempting to create cohesion without stability. Towards the end, a note of uncertainty crept into the dancers encounter but it seemed unprepared for. However, despite a good performance, particularly by Pfeifle, “Unbecoming” needed more of a trajectory and internal thrust. Its fifteen-minute length seemed very long.
