"Lucy's Playlist"
Bowen McCauley Dance
Signature Theatre's Ark
Shirlington Village, Arlington, Virginia
June 12, 2009
by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ
How much difference music makes when one watches dance is something I learned long ago from Ann Barzel's silent footage of performances. Barzel, the late Chicago critic and historian, used the movies she took from just off stage in the wings or from the prompter's box in her lectures on what was called "dance appreciation" in the 1940s. Shocking to me was how choreography that had looked fluent in the theater would fall apart when seen on screen without sound. If I knew the missing music well and played it in my head, I could glue the ballet back together again. Balanchine interested me particularly although I hadn't seen much of his work in repertory at the time. In Barzel's takes, though, his choreography cohered. Years later, I learned to turn down my mental sound dial as choreographers began to use more and more pop music for the dance stage. I found I could dampen high volume, diminish stridency and, if necessary, put my mind on total mute. Pop, particularly rock-and-roll, isn't my beat.
I lasted Lucy Bowen McCauley's hour long playlist of r-&-r songs because I knew she had choreographed to true music in the past, had done so with skill and I was able to rely on my perverse skill of ignoring the noise in order to see the dancing.
Bowen McCauley's imagery was apt. In "Pump It Up" her four jocks were stock, doing their sports maneuvers full out until sweat poured from them and they were left puffing. Yet the choreographer tweaked the material too, showing each guy as an individual. Nor did all the peas in the pod seem alike in the "Southern Girls" pas de quatre as these beauties sunbathed, exercised and were flippantly sexy. The dreamy romance of "Falling Slowly" engaged a shy couple, Alicia Curtis and Dustin Kimball, in face-to-face embraces and lifts. Kristin Brown-Maki's seeker in "I Know There's A Word" had no toe shoes but was balletic nonetheless, and Robert Sidney tensed soulfully as he wandered "Miles from Nowhere".
The group numbers, involving the foregoing dancers plus Brook Urquart, Alicia Curtis and Amanda Moone, were run in high gear. And, the action went into overdrive with "I Wanna Be Sedated" as the choreographer (billed as Lupe del Carmen) made a surprise appearance dancing on crutches. This was an evening of fun in which two dancers, Heidi Kershaw and Alvaro Palau, provided something more.
Kershaw and Palau first had their respective solos - her "Little Sin" and his "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", Then they met for ""Sweetness"" - yes, it should be in double quotes. Palau was the Latin Lover consummate - he moves so sensually that one senses his muscles rippling even when he's fully dressed. When he stands stripped to the waist and inclining his head, one becomes aware too of his disembodied self hovering there. Palau is no expressionist who squeezes emotions out from within but that rarity - the classical dancer able to act while watching himself in the process.
The speed and span of Kershaw's acrobatic technique testify to discipline. No question that she's in control physically. Yet there is something demonic in her manner. It was hinted at but didn't fully show this time. It may take further encounters with Palau to bring out Kershaw's genie. In the duo, he kneels before her and then draws her down. What will she do to his duality? Lucy Bowen McCauley's next task must be to choreograph this relationship to its conclusion. Please, dear choreographer, do it but not to rock-and--roll.
