Conservator

Tania Perez-Salas Compania de Danza
Terrace Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
September 29, 2010

by George Jackson
copyright 2010 by George Jackson

Found objects fascinate some people, whether they are practicing artists or not. The young Mexican choreographer Tania Perez-Salas collects movement she has experienced in life and examines how it looks on different dancers, against music by different composers, and in varied theatrical settings. Yet keeping the original essence intact seems to be her priority rather than polishing, developing or transforming the found motion. 

The three of her works which Perez-Salas' modern dance company of 8 women and 5 men presented for the opening performances of this season's Kennedy Center contemporary series were made in 2002, 2010 and 1998. My guess is that the first, titled "3.Fourteen Sixteen", probes the energetic movement of youth. It seems always on the go, whether the context is work, leisure or erotics. The choreography doesn't really commit adultery with too many pieces of music (by not unrelated composers - Marais, Frescobaldi, Vivaldi, F. Couperin, Pergolesi ) because Perez-Salas doesn't use music traditionally. It is as if she were holding up her found object against different tints of the same background color. 

"Ex-Stasis", perhaps originating in dreams and bed sheets, plays with bodies and swaths of cloth. I was reminded of the great veil Noguchi dropped between the world of the living and Hades in the Balanchine/Stravinksy "Orpheus". Peres-Salaz does such unfurling of sheets several times on smaller scales and against music by Meredith Monk, Monolake, Pan Sonic, Chris Isaak, Gustavo Cerati and Digitalverein. 

The dancers' precision and cohesion doesn't seem to matter. Coordination can be approximate at best when they perform the same thematic. It is the quality of their expression that seems to be what Perez-Salas wants us to see. Especially in "Waters of Forgetfulness", the choreographer likes to separate the sexes before she lets them join. In "Waters" the dancers do more than wade, they immerse themselves in a pool and are finally showered on. It might have been effective to dance this piece just to the sounds of the water, but there was music from three (only three) recorded sources - Arvo Part, M. Danna and the Stoa Group. 

No question that these dancers are capable of producing intense motion and that they are a good looking group, both when costumed (efficiently, tastefully) or seminude. Do they, though, have nuance and can they negotiate complex step patterns and sustain extended passages of modulation? For an answer, Perez-Salas would have to develop her found motion beyond a personal experience of it. She'd be taking the chance of loosing its original essence, but on the other hand she might stumble onto something astonishingly new.