"Mumbo-jumbo and Other Works”
Christopher Williams
92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival
Buttenwieser Theater
New York, NY February 25, 2011
By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2010 by Martha Sherman
Dig deep into your subconscious. If you’re lucky, you may find an image or two as lush as those that have populated Christopher Williams’ work over the last decade. Several excerpts, plus a world premiere and a segment of a work in progress were offered in the Harkness Dance Festival at the Buttenwieser Theater of the 92nd St. Y. The evening is its own story – the tale of the development of a young choreographer, puppeteer, poet and musician. It’s a chronologically told fable, placing this year’s “Mumbo-jumbo” at the end of a line of magical stories, and a fanciful taste of what’s to come in 2011. His theme has always been, at some level, transformation (often through our animal selves); his current work focuses on stripping away layers of identity, specifically layers of ethnocentrism in American artistic consciousness.
“Mumbo-jumbo,” the world premiere, was based on the tales and characters of Brer Rabbit and Little Black Sambo. These stories – and the dances-- were a far cry from the rest of the evening’s medieval tales, though part of the rich lineage of animal tales at the center of much of Williams' work. The piece started as a series of interlinked solos, sung/told/danced by Paul Singh and Raja Kelly as minstrels. Both stories have racist overtones in this culture, and Williams pushed those evocations with wildly overdone minstrel costumes – the blackest of blackface, curliest of Afro wigs, whitest widest greasepaint grins. As Kelly and Singh leapt, stalked, suffered through their stories, the layers of their characters’ identities were peeled away with their costumes. By the end, they each sat in a pool of white light on the stage, down to their undershorts, and linked as a couple. Strangely, although this was the evening’s complete work, and the dancing was powerful, it didn’t feel quite finished. It felt as if Williams, himself, hadn’t come to sufficient closure with his idea. “Mumbo-jumbo” was like an odd man out in this evening of exotic tales, as if also still a work in progress.
Speaking about identity through racist imagery is a recent example of Williams' particular audacity -- he doesn't pull his punches. In each excerpted scene, wildly costumed performers, often with the animal characteristics of the legends of many cultures, moved in luxurious, exaggerated movements. Instead of the puppets that he so adeptly uses, this retrospective was all dance movement. Several pieces were accompanied by a musical trio and two singers, an extravagance of live medieval and exotic music that is another hallmark of Williams’ work. Music for the work in progress, and the 2010 “Hen’s Teeth” was created by Williams’ musical collaborator, Gregory Spears; its lushness is also rooted in medieval instruments and sensibilities.
Especially because of their extravagance and imagination, there are highs and lows in Williams’ complete works. Some segments capture us; some are confusing or unconvincing even when they intrigue. The dancers of these excerpts reminded of the richness of each of the full works. It would be hard to be more stately than Caitlin Scranton as the woman in white in “Ursula and the 11000 Virgins” (2005) as she stretched and angled her long body up and out, dancing to a single violin line and a piercing soprano melody. But Burr Johnson, bold and searing in another powerful solo and image from “The Golden Legend,” matched that stateliness. He was a believable saint, with his halo of rocks, come to us from an ancient time.
In addition to the dramatic solos, Williams invested groups of dancers with their own mysterious and powerful characters. The ghostly trio from “Virgo Genitrix” (2003), three tightly connected women whose anonymity was accentuated by dark outlined breasts and buttocks, were sculptures in motion, not quite human. Also hewing to otherworldly identities, the six bird creatures of “Hen’s Teeth” (2010) entered like the shades of Bayadère, each mimicking the fluttering entrance of the last. As they pulled off their molting feathered skin with their teeth, they revealed shoulders, breasts and bobbing fluttering heads – the birdwomen not only of a Breton tale, but also of our own subconscious imaginings. These dance images are memorable moments, and having another look was a gift.
Although the dance movement is filled with sensuality, the women in these works were not romantic figures. But, oh, the men. The two male duets were boldly erotic. Williams partnered Singh in “The Portuguese Suite” (2006.) Starting in tight, parallel patterns across the back of the stage, they soon moved into a series of silky lifts, each flowing up, over, around the other. The dance closed with a deep, clichéd, inevitable kiss. The later male duet, “Mumbo-jumbo’s” minstrel pair, ended with the same coupling and the same kiss. It was one of the few entirely parallel gestures of this chronology of dance.
The Buttenweiser Theater was an apt setting for Williams’ offering. The haunted house chandeliers overhead and extravagant 1929 painted ceiling set the tone; Jon Harper’s harsh, often garish lighting slashed the wide performing space with streaks of green, gold, and glaring whites. In the final excerpt, the untitled work in progress, the wolfish and beaked monster pair who lunged and hung on each other threw enormous shadows against walls and stage backdrop. In an evening about identity and transformation (our personal lights and shadows,) the drama of the tale was the trajectory of a magical storyteller and his journey in dance.
copyright © 2010 by Martha Sherman
Photos by Julie Lemberger
Top: Paul Singh and Raja Kelly in “Mumbo-jumbo”
Bottom: Jennifer Lafferty in "Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins"