“Here I Am Again Alone Again,” “Sheathings from a Steep Slope”
Heather Bregman and Katie Dean, Nadia Tyskulsker/Spark(edIt) Arts
Triskelion
New York, NY
February 22, 2014
by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2014 by Martha Sherman
A magical dreamscape trumped an athletic performance in the recent double bill at Triskelion. In an industrial setting in “Here I Am Again Alone Again,” Heather Bregman and Katie Dean leaned heavily on yoga and gymnastic moves; each was powerful in her own way, but, in their aloneness, they failed to connect either with each other or the audience. In “Sheathings from a Steep Slope, Nadia Tyskulsker/Spark(edIt), presented three more strong women, but braided them together in a work of strange and engaging imagery.
Bregman and Dean’s piece was billed as a work about infinity, voyeurism, sensory deprivation and overload, among other wide and varied themes. So much baggage in such a limited frame was bound for trouble, and as their title warned, Bregman and Dean spent their dance not together, but “Alone Again.”
In Bregman’s long opening solo, she moved in a slow diagonal across the space with her hips shifting languorously back and forth, as if it were an entrance in a Kabuki play. Through this solo, Dean sat on a high steel platform, facing away from her partner, disconnected. When it was her turn, Dean swung down from the platform, into flexible yoga-like poses, lunges and balances In one of the most striking images, she smoothly slid up from the floor powered by her back; her back arched a high bridge, then slid back down to the floor as smoothly and powerfully as she had risen. It seemed almost impossible – but later, Bregman pulled the same trick.
Although occasionally intersecting (Bregman lightly grabbing Dean’s ankle, or the two leaning against each other in a brief moment in a floor pose,) the connections were brief; they each seemed to wait for their own turn through much of the piece.
In addition to the industrial platform, their set included a puzzling video screen downstage and four translucent mirrored screens that framed them (and the reflected audience) in the work’s close. Although the power of their movement, the visual effects, and the score by Justin Frye (electric, episodic, and often overwhelmingly loud) grabbed our attention, very little actually happened to hold it; the audience, too, seemed to be left again, alone.
Tysklusker described “Sheathings from a Steep Slope,” as “a collective effort in the phenomena of Forgetting,” and “fantastic re-imaginings” from the performers’ personal memories, but the performers and the audience were connected in those imaginings. Between the dances, the space was transformed, with a row of audience seats hugging the stage, and a funny fabric hut by set designer, Hiroko Ishakawa, snuggled upstage. Three wooden panels like picket fences were suspended in the center of the stage, and the three dancers, Aya Wilson, Tara Sheena, and EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, were both trapped and embraced by the small enclosure.
Partly hidden by the slats of wood, the trio danced in a shifting triangle in patterns that paired a duet with a counterpoint soloist. They slid from jerky, robotic moves into slow and smoother movements, to an electric score with an African beat. That trio shifted to a different configuration, a new pair intertwining, as the third slid away. Whether in synch or not, the triangle was a magnetic form for several apparitions.
When the wooden panels were removed, the stage opened, and the fabric cottage in the corner became a place to hide or change costumes. Wilson danced a writhing solo, while Sheena and Skove-Epes were hidden by the hut. When they reappeared, Wilson faded back to allow their duet the spotlight. The dancers ran forward and backward, their bodies colliding, jumping up with scissoring legs. Between mini-scenes, they pulled a sheet out from the hut and held it as a screen for quick clips from old science fiction films, then plucked microphones off of the hut walls and gave fragmented nonsensical lecture snippets, all odd punctuation in dreamlike sequences. The layers of imagery, sound, set, movement, and even the strange plastic monster-figures that were passed out as party favors to the audience, all added to the fantastical sense of imbalance.
Finally, each dancer devolved into intense, focused movement – bobbing and jiggling that they endured for several long minutes. Just as in many a strange dream, the images lasted well past the moment when the lights faded.
Triskelion has been a long-time resident of the third floor space in this landmarked building in Williamsburg. In an admission that the north side of Williamsburg has gotten so popular that it serves outsiders more than locals, the theater is moving to a less trendy Brooklyn neighborhood. One man’s loss is another’s gain. Although the works aren’t – and shouldn’t be – universally successful, it’s good to know that Triskelion will continue to be here to support risky artists.