The Dinner Party
Artomatic
New Building at 55 East M Street SE
Washington, DC
June 11, 2009
by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ
Explanations first! The Dinner Party is a dance performance series for unfinished and impromptu work. It has had monthly sessions since April 2008, usually in vacant places - those about to be demolished or those just constructed but not yet occupied. Previous "sittings" I've attended were at The Warehouse, a crumbling store that once housed a cabaret cafe and faces Washington's sleek Convention Center. For its June sitting, The Dinner Party chose a structure near the city's new baseball stadium and of even more recent vintage. Practically all of this still empty structure has been turned over temporarily to Artomatic - an organization with an even longer history (since 1999) of using urban renewal real estate for art. From May 29 through July 5, Artomatic has put nine floors worth of art objects on display - nine minus room for support activities and performances. The stage on Floor 6 is designated for dance.
This dance stage is a spacious platform. Serving as backdrop is a long, cartoon-geometric painting in which orange, blue and white fight for dominance. (I didn't find the painter's name.) Seated on chairs or benches infront of the platform, the audience can also look to the far left, i.e. north, at the Capitol's dome and to the far right, i.e. east, at the Transportation Department's new headquarters. (In other directions the 6th Floor's big windows also give good views of the Anacostia River and baseball stadium to the south and towards the Potomac River to the west.)
Best on the program was a truly impromptu number that came into being because a dancer, Sylvana Christopher Sandoz, needed for the evening's final item, had sent word that she was running late. Rather than announce a long intermission, one of The Dinner Party's hosts - Amanda Abrams - accepted an offer by Kate Jordan, choreographer of the final item, and Robert Bettmann, a former participant, to improvise a duet. Available was a bouncy piece of country western music. Jordan and Bettmann courted to it with a jaunt as fresh as new mown clover. She, streamlined, had force, speed and unabashed glee. He, lanky, pretended to be laid back but was all angles - sensually so. I've seen him dance before but not so seamlessly and cleanly. Together, this pair nonchalantly fused hip hop and bits of ballet to a square dance stride and conjured up the likes of Lil' Abner and Daisy Mae's grandkids. It is a generation that has been to the Big City, at least via the television tube.
The duet contrasted well with a preceding item - Leslie Burns' slow, ritual solo. Dressed in austerely glamorous black, Burns held a black mandala cutout and carried it to the center of the platform. The audience had been asked to come and stand at the platform's front edge. Burns lowered herself to the floor and as we looked down at her, she began to dismember the mandala. She did so with Ruth St. Denis-like elegance of gesture and placed each portion of her object in a circle around herself. Finally she stood up, stepped outside the magic circle, took a last look at it and stopped, prompting us to applaud.
Kate Jordan's intended dance, a women's quartet, started with three figures standing fairly still while the fourth knelt and began doing stiff, stern arm motions. Activity spread to her torso and then to the legs. All the while this dancer kept low to the ground, which forced her body to oscillate, pendulate or lean in a stylized manner. When she finally stood upright and her 3 companions became active, the dancing became more routine.
The program included two electric guitarists - Lucho Chavesta performing a romantic selection and Angie Head who plucked with stridency and sang that way too. There was no printed program, so I can't provide more information about the musical selections or the participants. The urge to dance , though, is so strong in this town that there's no shortage of in-process pieces and performers willing to improvise in public. Usually, The Dinner Party ends with a dialog session in which the audience comments on the work and questions the choreographers and performers. This time there were individual conversations but nothing communal occurred. People wandered off to look at the art objects on display or gaze out the windows.