“Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies”
John Jasperse Company
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
June 16, 2010
By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2010 by Martha Sherman
Of the choices in his title, “Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies,” it is the whimsy of “Wishful Thinking” that best captures John Jasperse’s intricate, funny, and welcoming choreography. That, and “Truth.”
At every turn, the dance’s contradictions remind the audience not to count on what we see as true. Jasperse moves among many roles -- magician, fierce partner, stealthy silhouette. None of those roles define him; they are a few quick glimpses of the many facets of an artist who likes to tease as often as clarify. None of those roles are “Flat Out Lies,” either.
“Truth” is a lush piece. It incorporates a commissioned score by Hahn Rowe, performed live by a string quartet in the second half; eye-popping spangled costumes designed by Jasperse and Deanna Berg MacLean; dramatic lighting created by Jasperse and his long time collaborator Joe Levasseur; as well as the rich varied choreography credited to Jasperse and his cast. You get the drift here? There was not an element of this work that didn’t spring from Jasperse’s imagination. Each element, though, also depended on the relationships he has developed and built with artists who are his partners. What a satisfying collaboration was manifest!
“Truth” was offered in two acts. The first half was cloaked in black; the second entirely in white – one of the many visual metaphors for the boundaries and uncertainties between truth and lies, fantasy and reality. Often, the stage design, lighting, or dancers split between black and white as well.
In their first entrance, Erin Cornell and Eleanor Hullihan, tightly wrapped in short, sparkly black costumes, undulated with sex appeal and invitation. They were joined by more sparkle: their partners Neal Beasley and Kayvon Pourazar. Initially, they didn’t dance together so much as dress the stage communally, sweeping their arms and torsos, twisting their expressive wrists and hands. They also each used their toned glutes in a wriggling, twitching pattern that provided one of the evening’s ongoing jokes and linked several different scenes. One highpoint of the evening’s lighting was the perfectly pointed spotlights at the end of this scene that lit four pairs of energetically twitching buttocks.
Every scene spotlit dance in different forms, sometimes pairing unsuccessful and successful passes of the same moves. A chorus line of the four dancers offered ragged balances with extended crooked legs; later, Cornell and Hullihan offered a perfect pairing of the same balances. Jasperse’s entrance was a faulty attempt to describe and do a simple pirouette; in the next scene Pourazar and Hullihan danced a disciplined ballet duet, while Jasperse distracted the audience with silly magic tricks. We saw moments of tango, frug (yes, remember that one?), ballroom pairings, and the snug clasp of high school slow dancing. A short mimed gunfight prefigured a wickedly expressive slow-motion dance fight between Jasperse and Cornell. They gave us a physical version of Edward Albee’s warring couple George and Martha, a 20th century touchstone for the gap between truth and lies.
The closing scenes of each act brought all five dancers together, with Jasperse moving from outsider to insider. In the first act, Jasperse quietly hugged the back of the stage clothed in a grey body suit like an embodied shadow, and comically slipped away. Then the stage filled with dreamy fog and the other two men, also grey shadows, crawled toward the posing women and had their heads lightly caressed like beloved pets. When Jasperse returned, the five formed a horizontal line across the stage, three upright with stretched arms wide in a DaVinci-esque pose. Two of the men stayed low, luring partners to join them in prone embraces. High and low were both powerful; just like truth and lies.
At the end of the second act, the white-costumed dancers and musicians all donned lacey doilies as head-coverings, unsuccessfully hiding themselves (their truths?) for a long silent posed scene that stretched from the stage into the audience. When they divested themselves of the head-coverings, the musicians softly brought their stringed instruments back to life.
The dancers slowly moved around the stage in familiar movements of wide arms and long sweeping circles. It felt like we were watching a family dancing languidly around their living room. In a final visual joke, a curtain of white light rose from the bottom of the backdrop to fill the stage with light, as if the performance were about to begin. As the glowing “curtain” rose, the stage itself darkened, turning the dancers into stark silhouettes against the brightness, before going to black.
The feel of this piece was languorous throughout; there was little speed and no frenzy (even in the fighting scene.) It was a measured journey, often funny, incorporating every player and every element of the staging and the dance. The relationships in Jasperse’s work and the connectedness among all of the parts tell the most undeniable truths. That’s the wishful thinking, fulfilled.
copyright © 2010 by Martha Sherman
Photos by: Silvio Dittrich
Top: Kayvon Pourazar, Erin Cornell, Neal Beasley, Eleanor Hullihan
Bottom: Erin Cornell, John Jasperse