“Impending Joy” “Lightbulb Theory”
David Dorfman Dance
Buttenweiser Hall, 92nd Street Y
New York, NY
March 22, 2014
by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2014 by Martha Sherman
After more than thirty years onstage, David Dorfman could easily sit back on his choreographic laurels if he chose, and let his performers do the heavy lifting -- but the man can still dance. He can also talk, and so can all of his dancers. In revivals of two connected works, “Lightbulb Theory” and “Impending Joy,” which both premiered in 2004, Dorfman used energized physicality and text to explore the power of happiness – as the balm for deep grief in the first, and an anti-war message in the second. As the final offering of “Stripped/Dressed,” the Harkness Dance Festival’s series curated by Doug Varone, Dorfman’s company was happy to lay bare its ideas, movement elements, and hopes.
The format of the Stripped/Dressed Festival is part talk, part dance: the choreographer and troupe discuss their process in whatever way best tells their story, to demystify dance and help audiences better relate to the work. In addition, the work is stripped of sets and costumes – presented unadorned. Dorfman was at ease with this combination of casual and intimate, sharing his stories and history as if with friends. “Lightbulb Theory” was created in the year when Dorfman’s father was dying and when his son Sam (in the audience this night) was born. Dorfman’s description of finding joy through darkness was simple and generous. “Impending Joy,” which opened later in 2004 as a partner piece to “Lightbulb Theory,” was conceived as an “antidote” to the softness of the earlier work.
“Lightbulb Theory,” the more powerful work, was second in the program. Dorfman himself opened it, with the open-hearted gift of a solo. Although the other dancers’ younger bodies were better suited to the rigors of the dance, Dorfman’s authorship of each phrase gave him a different, compelling mastery. The original piano score by Michael Wall, played live by Bob Hart, floated haunting melodies that were sweet but not saccharine, and soft dynamics that sometimes matched and sometimes led the movement.
The solo introduced several motifs echoed later by the other dancers. A leg stretched long in front of Dorfman pulled his body forward into a graceful stretched step, head flung back and arms reaching toward the sky. Another pose gave him small wings, his arms curled up until his hands rested on his shoulders. He looked cherubic, especially when those arms were paired with the gentle smile that played on his lips throughout.
Spinning his arms wildly like a windblown pinwheel, or pulling his body into a quaking shiver, Dorfman dashed around the stage like a man in search of something –seeking the balance between life’s joys and grief.
At the close of his solo, the lights fell, and he was replaced by the full cast, who used the DNA of the solo to build more powerful patterns. The cast echoed Dorfman’s softness (the curved arms, the deep arch of their backs as they curled over each other), and built on his energetic coverage of the stage with phrases that were even larger and more insistent.
Although it had been created second, “Impending Joy” was offered first. Everywhere that “Lightbulb” softened – curved lines and draping bodies – “Joy” shot out in crisp lines and angles. Here, the outstretched arms were like salutes, high and tight. They were held elongated as the dancers held white wood pickets pulled from a nest of wire that lay tangled upstage, evoking wooden swords.
“Impending Joy” set a soloist, Christine Robson, opposite a trio representing her community, Raja Kelly, Karl Rogers, and Kendra Portier, who pulled up several of the white pickets, each with legends or instructions written on them as the piece opened. Robson danced a stressed solo with fast, sharp steps and swishing arms circling to a harsh score. The trio stood watching, and offered a long-armed salute that was a little creepy and fascistic. As Robson panted in exertion and fell to the ground, the others piled the pickets on her and called out, verbally persuading and packing her off: “Hey, Jane, you look so good; don’t worry about a thing.” As Dorfman had suggested in the pre-dance conversation, the double-edged question about war is: Who fights and who decides?
In a monologue of persuasion and duplicity, Kelly continued to press the hapless Robson (“You look so good; we care a great deal – maybe.”) as she stumbled under the burden of the pickets. As he blabbed, Kelly fluttered among a series of gestures – hands to his face, a punch in the air, thumbs up, and a noteworthy vomiting movement that seemed to reflect the reality about what he was saying.
In the discussion after the piece, Kelly walked through the seven specific gestures that accompanied the monologue. He and Dorfman contended that the character was conflicted, more caring than he’d been at the start. The argument wasn’t convincing; the piece still came across as a story of society’s slick exploitation of an innocent. It was hard to find the “joy from darkness,” but the piece worked as an anti-war statement.
At the close of “Lightbulb Theory,” Portier danced alone, a mirrored riff on Dorfman’s opening solo. Her joy was more moderated by pain than his more open exuberance was. The relentless pace of stretching lunges across the stage and non-stop motion made her pant softly. As her arms flapped, crossing her body, then raised, finally up to the air, she cried aloud for “help, help,” first softly, than stronger. The lightbulbs overhead – the two beautiful chandeliers of Buttenweiser Hall – began to fade, and Portier’s chant changed from “help” to “hope, hope…” Her hands moved to loop at her shoulders, in the now-familiar cherubic wing shape; and the quiet hope-filled stage darkened, echoing with Dorfman’s generosity and optimism.