"The Rodin Project"
Russell Maliphant
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
December 9, 2012
By Carol Pardo
Copyright ©2012 by Carol Pardo
Both dance and sculpture transform space, making it vibrate and come to life. The vitality of Auguste Rodin’s work has inspired a response from British choreographer Russell Maliphant, "The Rodin Project." At 100 minutes, it is Maliphant’s first evening-length work and his first with sets (by Es Devlin and Bronia Houseman), as well as his first using dancers trained in a discipline other than modern dance; hip hop figures prominently in the bios of the three men and three women who make up the cast. It is a relief to report that none of them spends any time aping "The Thinker". Maliphant’s interest in Rodin is not pictorial, but sensory and allusory.
The transformation of the black box stage of the Joyce into a landscape simultaneously classical, romantic and almost expressionistic—all three strands can be found in Rodin’s work too—was the most magical aspect of the performance. The curtain rose on the dark stage with, just distinguishable, forms resembling tent caterpillar nests on the floor. Pulled upward into the light, they became columns in a loggia overlooking a hill of white fabric. We were somewhere between the Acropolis, the roiling fabric of Fragonard’s "Le Verrou" as a lover, restrained by his beloved tries to flee their well-used bed, and a garbage dump wrapped by Christo. Wherever we were, it felt far away from 8th Avenue and 19th Street.
The women (Ella Mesma, Carys Staton, and Jennifer White) entered in white chitons with cut-outs at the midriff. They wrapped themselves in the fabric, forced to be content with limited movements, playing with the angles of arms head and torso, and eventually manipulated the panes of fabric to open up half the stage for the men, Tommy Franzen, Thomasin Gülgeç, and Dickson Mbi, also wearing white, something between shorts and a dhoti. We were back in all too familiar territory with passive women creating opportunities for men; artists and models, anyone? Two anonymous duets reinforced the status quo, without revealing anything new about Maliphant’s view of Rodin of of the dancers. A danced fight for two men followed, on the only level ground on stage, a narrow ribbon right at the front. It is here that Maliphant showcased his use of hip-hop, popping and capoeira, and of dancers trained in those genres. The men finish brusquely. It’s been about half an hour and Act 1 is suddenly over.
Act 2 looked different if equally perilous for the dancers, but not much else was new. Black ramps, blocks and platforms littered the stage; a wall rose, askew on one side. New York’s rooftops with their tar paper and hatches came to mind, the perfect place for Robbins’ "New York Export Opus Jazz". The costumes were in neutral colors, with bright tops for the women (when they were clothed). One solo had a woman passing overhead supine like the Rokeby Venus. The most compelling dancing again belonged to two men who worked out their testosterone-fueled competition by climbing and dancing up and down the wall. It was fascinating to watch them work—and work hard. But, like most of the second act it went on too long and the mind wandered to images from Trisha Brown’s "Man Walking Down the Side of a Building" or Fred Astaire, dancing on the floor, walls and ceiling.
Maliphant’s admiration for Rodin is sincere and ongoing. But rather than connecting to the elegance of "The Age of Bronze" or conveying the emotion, power, darks and lights of "The Gates of Hell" what we see is the Rodin of the portrait busts of well-heeled ladies, technically accomplished, reticent to the point of dullness, and leached of chiaroscuro passion that inspired the choreographer in the first place
