"Entity"
Wayne McGregor/Random Dance
Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
November 11, 2011
By Rita Felciano
Copyright @ Rita Felciano, 2011
Wayne McGregor's "Entity" surprised with an integrity and finesse that neither "Chroma" nor "Eden/Eden", his two works in San Francisco Ballet's repertoire, could muster. Here, watching McGregor's thought processes and intelligence in action, seeing the choreographic process unfold, expand and curl in on itself to physicalize concepts about the intricacy of the human body, was a cool -- in every sense of the word -- and cerebral but also thrilling experience. "Entity's" high degree of stylization and transparent structure, combined with a tsunami of invention, demanded and received my complete attention.
In an after-performance discussion, which I missed, McGregor apparently said that he worked with scientists. The piece has something of a work-a-day quality about it. Patrick Burnier's set of three large curved screens, with their operating mechanism clearly visible, at first looked a little like the windows in factories or laboratories through which visitors can look in on the work going on without interfering with the activities in the hermetically sealed location. Muybridge's film of the greyhound on a treadmill served as the reigning metaphor. On one level it's a simple study of motion but also a demonstration of how beautifully every part contributes to the smooth and efficient functioning of the animal's body. In that film science and aesthetics are one.
"Entity" derives its title from the sense of common purpose in which dancers seem to be engaged. These performers are a team, committed to and highly competent to do demanding work. They even wear a uniform, T-shirts, eventually taken off, and shorts. They walk in straightforwardly and, task accomplished, they leave. Their interactions with each other are work-related, friendly but impersonal. At one point, four of them on their way out, stop in each corner as if anchoring the space down, and then they leave on cue. A duet may be interrupted by an intruder but the "conversation" continues with someone else. "Entity" abounds with passing on of discovered information. A big kick turns into a hook lassoing a partner. The energy of a belly rub moves to a neighbor.
But there are also wonderful moments where the seriousness of these endeavors is broken. Lining up upstage, the dancers stare at us like models at end of a runway show. In their attempts to knit and interlocks limbs and break every straight line in sight, they get so entangled that we can't tell what belongs to whom, and you can only hope that the dancers do. A male duet started out as kind of patty-cake and picked up such speed that you ended seeing two cats in heat pawing each other. And then there is that moment which leaves Jessica Wright wistfully sitting on floor, wondering what's happened to her partner. There is fury to some of Fukiko Takase's attacks that make you speculate about the reason. Alexander Whitley, sometimes, looked like the newcomer who doesn't quite fit in. A series of whipping turns left him disoriented until other dancers streamed in, and he found his bearings.
Of course, "Entity" tried to show the complexity of the body's mechanism and the extremes to which it can be pushed. But after a while that aspect was just a given. These performers are super athletes but so are acrobats and circus artists. More interestingly is how dancerly "Entity" was.
McGregor, for all his deconstruction of the vocabulary, has learned a thing or two from the tradition. He knows exactly where to direct your eyes either in sequences or a sense of overview. A solo could evolve into a duet that then multiplied into several identical ones and then broke up or perhaps spun off into a trio. With all the limbs flying into every direction, the hand gesture -- dancers enabling each other -- rarely seemed absent. And yes, they are lifted and lugged in every possible combination, but never, in best ballet tradition, does a woman do the heavy work. Early on, a man starts a solo to a cello line; a violin brings in a woman. How old-fashioned, you think, and then McGregor wipes them off the slate as if he had changed his mind.
There are times when "Entity" seems stuck in a mode but they pass quickly, and I am not sure to what extent the music -- one a string quartet, the second score raucously electronic -- had a viable function. As for the set, each part of which had its own crane, all I could think of was the money that it took to transport it. I am not sure it was worth it. The dancers did fine on their own.