Lush Life

"Bleed"
Tere O’Connor
BAM Fisher
Brooklyn, NY
December 11, 2013

By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2013 by Martha Sherman

Wrapped in each other’s idiosyncratic dance, the eleven performers in Tere O’Connor’s “Bleed” each shone with individuality – but remained pure-blooded.  A rich mix of movement and intermingled personality and style interwove to give “Bleed” its voice, just as the piece’s identity was built on a co-mingling of O’Connor’s three recent works, “Secret Mary,” “poem,” and “Sister.” Yet there was nothing muddy about this “bleed.”

O’Connor has been making contemporary dance for 40 years. He is a central figure and mentor in the dance world, and the opening at BAM Fisher played to an audience filled with dancers and choreographers; no one wanted to miss this work. As conceptual as are his descriptions of the work –“the complex coexistence of time passing, metaphor, change…”-- O’Connor makes dance; he uses movement and bodies to evoke emotion and relationship. “Bleed” is as dance-driven as any work he has created.

In his consistently collaborative canon,  “Bleed” is an ensemble piece, though each member of this cast could have commanded center stage.  The only full solo was at the opening, when the elegant Heather Olson, in a jewel-colored green dress, pulsed her body to a machine-like score. As the music shifted, her head thrust forward and body stumbled back – soft shot through with jagged. Her mouth opened in a silent cry, a round “O” that she and others echoed periodically, both a body shape and a psychological idea (pain, anger, confusion – or, at the piece’s close, ecstasy.)

Olson’s solo was brief; then James Baker’s score changed from its mechanical hum to tinkling bells and a vocal call that summoned the others, who joined her in pairs and trios. Although dancers stepped out for short moments alone, most of the work was a mix of sculptural groupings. A quartet of men who often moved in and out of two pairs suggested symmetry, but didn’t succumb to it. The quartet's movements echoed with repetition, with rotating or winged arms, angled deep knee dips. Sometimes a movement phrase from a single dancer popped up later in a complex weave by a trio or quartet.

The movement didn’t depend on one style or vocabulary, O’Connor drew from ballet for powerful jumps and balances as easily as from the asymmetries of contemporary movement; he focused on hands or fingers as often as limbs and torsos; and facial expression and verbalizations punctuated scenes in unexpected bursts. It was all part of the mix.

In a beautiful asymmetrical image that anchored several scenes, Oisín Monaghan (The Artist formerly known as Paul) lay angled toward the audience at the center of the stage in an oblong spotlight that suggested a grave. Monaghan’s pale body and tangle of white blond curls shone in the light. Around him, the other dancers, in pairs and trios, stood or moved in a formal ritual, like acolytes, or a tribe stalking and protecting their prisoner. This scene, reversed to angle away from the viewers, was a fitting end to the piece.

O’Connor's images evoked both beginnings and endings. Dancers circled around the stage in laps to open or close scenes. Small pairings of movement grew into large scenes; in one, a writhing Olson emerged from a tail of dancers who propped her up, like wildlife that was both her support and her master. Later, the whole cast joined into a wriggling tail: arms raised up and rotating forward, shifting in a long diagonal wave up and back, pulling the stage space with them.

So many dancers; so many beautiful moments. Silas Reiner and Michael Ingle commanded leaps that covered the stage; David Thomson and Cynthia Oliver, mature dancers who stood like a pair of sentries, protected the brood, catching or cradling the other dancers with tenderness.

Unlike O’Connor’s often gay-privileged work, “Bleed” took pains to be not just gender-neutral, but a reflection of multiple sexual orientations, looks and styles. Ethereal Monaghan balanced opposite powerful Ingle and Reiner.  Olson, dancing in her green dress, was a 1950s perfect TV housewife, while the sexual spectrum also encompassed androgynous, gamine-like devynn emory. No orientation was dominant – everyone lifted each other, balanced, leapt, preened; each was powerful and tender. Their sexuality and the mix of relationships shifted with each coupling or group.

Walter Dundervill reinforced the mix of bodies, themes, and dance roots with his arresting costumes. Olson’s emerald dress and Natalie Green’s sapphire top swirled among the neutral shirts of the men, who each wore short, unique toga-like layers of loose fabric, leaving their muscled arms bare. An occasional brightly colored fabric tag was stitched at the back, and the flicks of color and floating fabric added to the striking large group scenes.

“Bleed” is a generous work; its spaces feel unfettered and the dancers use movement more to highlight their companions than themselves. All were so confident (and the choreography so sure,) that each idea or movement phrase was both subordinate and central. O’Connor’s touch is not always this light and deft, but his explorations are dependably lush. With the balance of freedom and form in “Bleed,” O'Connor's hit the richest vein.

copyright © 2013 by Martha Sherman

Photos by Ian Douglas

Top:  Silas Reiner, Oisín Monaghan, Cynthia Oliver, David Thomson, Michael Ingle (held aloft,) Heather Olson in “Bleed”
Bottom: Heather Olson and cast in “Bleed”