"Elements"
Choreography by Larry Keigwin
Keigwin + Company
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
July 30, 2008
by Susan Reiter
copyright 2008 by Susan Reiter
Sly, playful, and more than willing to entertain, Larry Keigwin has gained a reputation for smart, tight pieces marked by wit -- an all-too-rare commodity in dance these days. His latest work is a full-evening traversal of the four elements (Water, Fire, Earth, Air), set to a musical selections -- from Handel to Cole Porter, Peggy Lee to Debussy -- that sometimes invite mockery, especially when they are as overly familiar as Mozart's "Elvira Madigan" piano concerto. He locates and sustains a particular motif or bit of whimsy for each segment, and neatly divides each of them into four sections, taking an intermission halfway through. The result is a polyglot suite that is brisk and engaging, if ultimately not particularly nourishing.
Keigwin seems to have been most inspired by Water and Air ---the strongest and most distinctive sections, and ones which open and close the evening. In both, he has found a clever conceit and managed to run with it, yet not run it into the ground. "Water" opens with towel-clad dancers taking turns in a downstage corner; as each stands, facing upstage, bottled water is poured to represent a shower and they almost, but not quite, reveal themselves as they open their towels and allow the next dancer to replace them. Deftly timed to the gentle, insistent pulse of the Mozart concerto's Andante, the sequence is slyly sexy and genially mocking. Eventually the six dancers move out into the space, the men still in their (well-secured) towel skirts, the women in tight white dresses that beautifully simulate a draped towel. The movement is simple (a repeated arm gesture that evokes swimming), the patterns far from intricate (lots of intersecting lines of three), but it has a persuative gliding ease that works very well with the score.
This opening, titled "Shower," is followed by the charming "Sea," in which bikini-clad Ying-Ying Shiau discovers, to her delight, a trio of men in white bathrobes who accommodatingly waft her through the air so that she appears to be effortlessly riding along the waves. While it is accompanied by Eartha Kitt singing Cole Porter's whimsical ode to the joys of sex, "Let's Do It," the dance has a blissful innocence, thanks to Shiau's pert charm and the men's deadpan obedience.
Alexander Gish sports a turban and gesticulates flamboyantly to Spanish popular song in "Spa," which is more of a sketch than a dance. Liz Riga enters repeatedly as the maid who suplies him with bottled water, which he tosss over himself with increasing abandon. She then brings him the black high heels in which he saunters off. More satisfiyng is "Splash, the conclusion of the Water segment, which returns to the Mozart (the Allegro) and reunites elements that have come before into a splashy good time. Towels are the dominant motifs -- men wearing them (with the nutty addition of black socks and shoes), people using them as means of crossing the stage (reclining and being pulled, or in Shiau's case, standing proudly and never wavering as she's pulled across). Gish still sports his turban, and two maids efficiently and inventively fold, place and rearrange their towels. All the activity bounds along, skirting chaos thanks to the music;s brisk pulse, and on the final note the dancers gleefully spurt water upwards from their mouths.
"Fire" opened with "Flicker," an intense, driven trio (set to a Handel countertenor aria) in which the silky, fluttering sleeves (extended beyond, and hiding, the dancers' hands) of Liz Prince's wild costumes effectively evoke the flicker of flames. The costumes -- full-body unitards in yellow, orange and red accented with glittery fringe appendages, wide belts, and helmet-lke caps-- are more memorable than the dance itself, although the dancers' intensity was persuasive. The same three -- Ashley Browne, Nicole Wolcott and Ryoji Sasamoto, then clustere close in the downstage left corner for "Simmer," in which the movement was completely the opposite -- inward, minimal, controlled. Accompanied by a Chopin Nocturne, their limited but insistent aciton, and the limited space in which they remained, did suggest an imminent boiling point.
"Burn" was a solo in which the gamine, riveting Wolcott flailed and plunged vigorously throgh expansive phrases and desperate gestures - intended as a physical counterpart to the extreme emotional state evoked by Peggy Lee singing "Crazy." "Fire" closed with a punchy, hyperactive trio (the same dancers) to a high-energy rap number. The dancers threw in some funky moves and seemed to bounce up from the floor.
For "Earth," which opened the second half, Keigwin chose to evoke reptiles and give the dancers dartnig head movements and other aspects intended to suggest such creatures. His own solo, "Gecko," to Debussy's mysterious "Syrinx," was an intriguing blend of such animalistic moves with a repeatd Petruchka-like floppy-clown motif. The other three sections were less distinctive and focused. Liz Riga had an intense focus to transcend a rather outlandish dress , with extreme ruffles, that Prince devised, in a solo to "Stormy Weather" whosw big gulps of movement resonated with more petulance than tragedy. The rest fo Prince's costumes for the section were an eccentric and whimsical celebration of plaids. While it was not clear how this embodied earth, they were stylishy entertaining.
"Air" returned to the deft cleverness of "Water," as Keigwin made the most of his conceit of airline personnel circa 1965, keyed by the bland inanities of the song "Up, Up and Away." Pieces of silver wheeled luggage glided along, sometimes serving as partners. After this opening, titled "Fly," came "Float," in which Shiau, in her gorgoeusly shaped and draped magenta gown, seemed to embody a blossoming flower, at times wafted from place to place by two men. Her apparent weightlessness and perfectly shaped positions made her appear a diaphanous, otherwordly being, and Debussy's "Arabesque" was the perfect music to accentuate the rapturous effect.
Keigwin and Gish were amiable, nostalgic soft shoe duo in "Breeze," gliding around and swiveling their hips to Perry Como's "Catch a Falling Star." The conclusion of "Air" -- and of the evening -- was "Wind," an unexpected forceful and extended onrushing of crossings and diagonals to Philip Glass' "Channels and Winds. Despite the repetitive nature of the usic and the difficulty of sustaining such high-energy, all-out movement, Keigwin triumphed here, sustaining the illusion of almost plunging off course while still remaining very much at the controls.
"Elements" will be performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival August 21 - 24.
Photos by Steven Schreiber:
Top: Ryoji Sasamoto, Nicole Wolcott and Ashley Browne in "Fire"
Bottom: Nicole Wolcott, Andy Cook, Ying-Ying Shiau, Liz Riga, Larry Keigwin in "Air"
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