"Singular Sensation”
Yasmeen Godder
The Kitchen
New York, NY
September 23, 2010
By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2010 by Martha Sherman
The problem with portraying excess is that it gets, well . . . excessive. Yasmeen Godder’s rich, wild “Singular Sensation,” in its New York premiere at the Kitchen, communicated the message and suffered the consequences. Along with Godder, a rugged cast co-created movement that was both physically intense and psychologically cacophonous. The challenges for them included not only remembering where to be and how to twist their faces and bodies, but doing so when almost nothing seemed to make any sense or to have any parallel or linkage. Challenging to the cast, it was exhausting for the audience.
Godder, an Israeli-American choreographer who spent 15 years growing up in New York before moving back to Israel, hinted at American icons subtly in an otherwise entirely unsubtle work. Evoking the hit “One” from “A Chorus Line” with the piece’s title is only the first tease to the audience’s subconscious. After a long wander through chaotic scenes, the piece closed with an American movie image as dancer Inbal Aloni evoked the singular star sensations (maybe Audrey Hepburn?) clad in headscarf, large dark glasses, and a trench-coat, then broke our expectations by flashing naked toward the back of the stage. The work used these icons as one route into excess, through the culture that seems to best represent it around the world.
Each player’s movement screamed “Me! Me!” through every scene. In Matan Zamir’s goofy opening, after gazing suspiciously at the audience for several moments, he pounded his chest, Tarzan-like, and stuck out his long tongue not just in defiance, but as if in tongue athletics, as it reached several unlikely inches to the lower left of his chin. Aloni, who soon joined him on stage, only danced to us, posing and flirting with wide eyes and sexual innuendo. As she wiggled in her deep purple dress, Zamir frantically ran back and forth on the stage (“Am I losing the crowd? Look at Me! Me!”)
The most singular element of Godder’s choreography was her use of the dancers’ faces, their muscles and features, and their flexibility in portraying emotion and energy from the neck up. Alerted early by Zamir’s long tongue, we were treated to grimaces, eye rolls, and intense flirtations as each dancer demanded that he or she draw our eyes and attention. Sometimes the facial expressions were matched by a unique laugh, a cackle, or a scream.
Each dancer had signature movements as well as faces, their personal traits and styles pushing through. Sara Wilhelmsson, tall and blonde among a dark, Mediterranean cast, would have stood out in a simple line-up. Every physical attribute, though, was extended – her long legs widely flung, her almost reflective white-blonde hair echoed first in an eye-popping silver costume, and later in shiny gold hot-pants. Late in the piece, she added a blue bandeau which cradled chest-enhancing oranges; she rolled her eyes and hips, popped the oranges out in a chilling, lascivious sequence, and offered them up to be squeezed into the mouths of the other dancers.
That image was offered at the same time as the on-stage creation of a Gregor Samsa-like superhero, dancer Tsuf Itschaky turned into a bug-man, worshipped and trapped. His acolytes wrapped him in a claustrophobic face mask of pantyhose, lit him with red flashing bug eyes, and stuffed his costume to bulge his muscles. The array of images and disconnects was a breathtaking display of imagination turning each dancer into more than a character, but an extreme.
The costumes, by Inbal Lieblich, were as widely diverse and colored as the movement – Zamir’s simple t-shirt and leggings, Wilhelmsson’s brilliant sparkle, Shuli Enosh’s body hugging shirt-dress. They were enhanced by props, including green paint vomited onto Itschaky’s face which became part of his superhero-bug get-up, and long red witchlike nails that Wilhelmsson wore, and then bit off and spat on the floor. The uncredited soundtrack was mixed electronic sound that sometimes offered rhythm, but more often provided the noise to matched noisy images. Everything was in service of the message: Too Much.
We got the message, and it wore us out. We were enlightened and impressed with the technical feats of the dancers and the complex structure of the piece. By the end, though, it felt like one of those lessons you learn because it’s good for you, not because it’s a subject you’d choose. But perhaps the desire for editing, especially during the long confusing center section and the drawn-out final superbug scene, may have been all that excess making its point.
copyright © 2010 by Martha Sherman
Photos by: Paula Court
Top photo: Sara Wilhelmsson, Inbal Aloni, Shuli Enosh
Bottom photo: Tsuf Itschaky, Matan Zamir, Inbal Aloni, Shuli Elosh