"Canyon"
John Jasperse
BAM Harvey Theater
Brooklyn, NY
November 16, 2011
By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2011 by Martha Sherman
The premiere at BAM of John Jasperse’s latest work, “Canyon,” is an homage to wonder. An artist whose work is subtle and implicit has used the grand, crumbling 19th Century Harvey Theater, a richly textured score by Hahn Rowe, and the collaboration of his five dancers to build a compelling dense work. That it somehow started with an idea of the Grand Canyon is both believable and irrelevant. Jasperse’s work has always been mysterious, hard to pin down. This work continued in that inscrutable tradition – the audience’s role was not to understand, but to watch and enter.
Jasperse didn’t just create a site-specific work in the space – he transformed the site to make it part of the work. In a design by Tony Orrico, the dark stage was covered by a large white over-floor that curved up at the back, making a low wall; several tall poles sat on stage, with red signal flags on tap. Every surface in the theater was wrapped in day-glo colored tape. Bold yellow and pink lines and designs covered the walls, and wrapped around the theater levels and exposed pipes. The tape designs were asymmetrical paths and puzzles, overlapping, angular, confusing. They even showed up along the walls in the restrooms -- inescapable. The performers, audience, and music were embraced and trapped by the lines, until Jasperse and the dancers began to pull up the tape in large sticky balls of color, reminding us that all of it was artifice, all controlled by the artists.
The dancers, three men (including Jasperse) and three women, entered crossing the stage in leaps and turns. Burr Johnson entered first, launching in diagonal and vertical lines, covering the stage in a few bounds. He was joined by the others, in solo turns, then in pairs of parallel movement. Jasperse doesn’t often cover this much territory – his more usual moves are smaller and more dense. Later, especially in segments – often in parallel pairs – danced prone on the floor, the movement felt more familiar – angled legs crossing over each other, or small chest collapses, as if the body were folding on itself.
When James McGinn entered, leaping, one of the red flags protruded up from the back of his shirt as if to say “look at me.” He was worth looking at. Among a group of fine dancers, he was a standout, his energy and intensity making some of the boldest statements in the piece. In a late section as he rolled on his back up and over the low curved wall, his limbs twitched and overlapped in personal organic geometric patterns. During his beautiful duets with Johnson, their bodies moved together as if levers, the hips of one shifting the weight of the other over and around a shoulder; their arms and legs lunged and intertwined, another pattern of angled lines set in a forest of Hahn Rowe musical texture.
In Jasperse’s solo among the flagpoles, he seemed to start a silent conversation with one of them, gazing and engaging it. Then he moved onto the floor, his body curving into a recognizable hill, with his hips in the air and shoulders and knees on the ground; the shape was echoed by later pairs and trios. Jasperse joined McGinn in an energized duet in which they stomped and turned with feet crossing in purposely stumbling rotations, a mix of control and serendipity.
A white cube, about four feet square, moved on wheels among the dancers and flags. It appeared and disappeared capriciously, a benevolent R2D2-like performance mascot; at one point it rolled over two of the dancers who were lying on the stage, and laid tape across their bodies (the audience caught a glimpse of a bare foot under the box: the mechanics briefly revealed.) Although not a performer, the box added another character in the mysterious equation. Why it mattered remained a puzzle, a curious unexpected layer of geometry and anthropomorphism.
Hahn Rowe’s music started as a driving combination of electronic sound; he used violin, cello, clarinet, and his rich electronic textures, providing not a backdrop but an embrace and stimulus for the movement. The score moved from energized to haunting to melodic to a soundscape that put us in the center of the woods, with just the electronic hint of wind, water, and rustling. Both the music and the movement were relentless, in patterns and textures that didn’t let up. The more they danced, the more deeply the audience was drawn into the mystery, our role still not necessarily to comprehend, but – having entered their world – to take it in.
copyright © 2011 by Martha Sherman
Photos by Julia Cervantes
Top: Burr Johnson and Erin Cornell in “Canyon”
Middle: Kennis Hawkins, James McGinn, Lindsay Clark in “Canyon”
Bottom: John Jasperse in “Canyon”
The dancers, three men (including Jasperse) and three women, entered crossing the stage in leaps and turns. Burr Johnson entered first, launching in diagonal and vertical lines, covering the stage in a few bounds. He was joined by the others, in solo turns, then in pairs of parallel movement. Jasperse doesn’t often cover this much territory – his more usual moves are smaller and more dense. Later, especially in segments – often in parallel pairs – danced prone on the floor, the movement felt more familiar – angled legs crossing over each other, or small chest collapses, as if the body were folding on itself.
A white cube, about four feet square, moved on wheels among the dancers and flags. It appeared and disappeared capriciously, a benevolent R2D2-like performance mascot; at one point it rolled over two of the dancers who were lying on the stage, and laid tape across their bodies (the audience caught a glimpse of a bare foot under the box: the mechanics briefly revealed.) Although not a performer, the box added another character in the mysterious equation. Why it mattered remained a puzzle, a curious unexpected layer of geometry and anthropomorphism.
Hahn Rowe’s music started as a driving combination of electronic sound; he used violin, cello, clarinet, and his rich electronic textures, providing not a backdrop but an embrace and stimulus for the movement. The score moved from energized to haunting to melodic to a soundscape that put us in the center of the woods, with just the electronic hint of wind, water, and rustling. Both the music and the movement were relentless, in patterns and textures that didn’t let up. The more they danced, the more deeply the audience was drawn into the mystery, our role still not necessarily to comprehend, but – having entered their world – to take it in.
copyright © 2011 by Martha Sherman
Photos by Julia Cervantes
Top: Burr Johnson and Erin Cornell in “Canyon”
Middle: Kennis Hawkins, James McGinn, Lindsay Clark in “Canyon”
Bottom: John Jasperse in “Canyon”