DancEthos in Concert
with guests Vladimir Angelov & darlingdance
American University’s Greenberg Theater
Washington, DC
November 16, 2013
by George Jackson
copyright 2013 by George Jackson
One difference between this and most other dance performances surfaced almost right away. Several of the regular performers haven’t the sleek body type that’s become standard. Their build is sturdy, even corpulent. Or diminutive. These dancers aren’t cast differently than the stereotypes. Another difference made itself felt only after seeing several of the 9 items on the bill. The company seems to prefer showing examples, sketches rather than choreography completed to the last detail. Real endings, satisfying conclusions tend to be absent. The cast just stops doing whatever it has been doing or suddenly sits down facing the footlights with bodies and faces proclaiming “That’s it!”. Still, there’s nothing pugnacious in the DancEthos approach. Company director Tiffany Haughn and colleagues make the audience and guest artists feel welcome to their little revolutions.
In “Until Now”, the program’s opening dance, the idea aired seems to be about integration. One figure wants to fit in with a majority of seven. Elizabeth Odell Catlett’s choreography states the problem clearly, continues episodically and, despite gifts being given, reaches no resolution. Kathleen Weitz’s “Humming in Elevators” has 5 people adjusting to a tight situation – again an issue of individuality and commonality but also of subgroups. Haughn’s “Spectrum” becomes busy subdividing its cast 8 women (2 vs. 6, 4 vs. 4, etc.) and suggesting moods – struggle, control, tension. Tina Fratello’s “groUpthink” is about 7 figures, female and male, remaining individuals despite the title. “Escapades”, also for 7 women and men, is Carolyn Kamrath’s set of rhythmic gymnastic exercises. In “Span”, by Matthew Bennett and Meg McDermott, a trio of women tries to adjusts itself to a movement norm but can’t overcome great degrees of uncertainty that remain. In all these sketches, the dancing was disciplined and full-out, no matter what the body type of the cast member. The ethos of DancEthos must be that dancing is for everyone who works hard at it.
Haughn’s “The Lines We Draw” and the two pieces by the guest choreographers were intended to be less sketchy entities. Hayley Cutler’s “Ugly Things: Againandagainandagain” for 4 women of the darlingdance company, wasn’t structurally elaborate but had intriguing movement textures – degrees of lighter and heavier motion, displacements, quirky shifts. Vladimir Angelov’s solo for the sleek and sure Althea Skinner dissected her body cubistically. This choreography, titled “Face-a-Book”, had a theme about the value of reading, of treasuring old-fashioned, printed and bound volumes. Its worth, though, were the striking juxtapositions of the dancer’s anatomic surfaces and her joints’ smart contramotions. The Haughn opus had a message about the dangers of prejudice, with a quote from Maya Angelou. That warning remained mostly in the printed program. On stage, there was an escalating exploration of the use of cloth in dance – to stretch body parts, to cover, to separate, to connect and bind, to be cushion or flag. The dancing built from two on stage to a concluding 11.
Photo by Amanda Kilgour.