Present

Yvonne Rainer et al.
“Assisted Living: Good Sports 2”,
“Assisted Living: Do You Have Any Money?”
American Dance Institute
Rockville, Maryland
April 25, 2014
 
by George Jackson
copyright 2014 by George Jackson
 
Quite recognizable after half a century, Yvonne Rainer stands tall and upright, surrounded by dance space. Holding a microphone, her dark hair cut close, Rainer now looks not playfully daring but purposefully direct as she emcees her Capital Area comeback. She doesn’t dance, that’s the job of others. As she watches them, though, or looks away, Rainer senses their movement, seeming at moments to lean into it or be resisting its pull. Despite activity by five dancers, a couple of prop men plus one wanderer, the stage becomes Rainer’s ever so readily as she walks about (slightly stiffly), sits or stands to speak. What admirable ingredients she picked for her two pieces!
 

Rainer’s recipes call for not just any dancers, but distinct ones: two short, three tall; four women, one man; one definitely balletic, four mobile in less stylized ways. None are the muscular “old modern” sort. In the first piece, “Good Sports 2” (from 2011), their recurring theme is a doggy jog. Wearing gym shoes, they do their jogging pretty much in unison, but with stops to grimace, gesture and pose, often individually. The other piece, the “Money?” one (from 2013), is more dancy. Done in flexible footwear, it is studded with intricate little steps. Is this Rainer’s set of variations on soft shoe numbers? For the first piece, Rainer uses a pair of stagehands to shift some everyday items about. The collection includes a mattress, pillow, radiator and barrel. On occasion, she helps with the shifting. A very prominent prop for the second piece is an overstuffed easy chair in which Rainer enjoys sitting when not disturbed by dancers clambering over it. There are no stagehands in the second piece but an “intruder” from the audience – suspiciously like a 1960s hippy or current homeless guy – wanders onto the dance floor and proceeds to perform a theme from Rainer’s “Trio A”. Rainer hugs him and he departs.
 
The soundscapes for Rainer’s two “Assisted Living” dances include snatches of music, noise and, most importantly, lengthy quotes. Rainer reads the major passages. It is as if she were switching back and forth between radio stations (NPR, C-span) or consulting oracles (Voltaire, Wikipedia). Quite a few quotes resonated for me. So did the dancers. Among them it was possible to imagine Pat Catterson as a teacher and Emily Coates as a ballerina. It would be intriguing to see Patricia Hoffbauer’s sculptural dynamic tested in a “stepless” contraction solo by a choreographer like Rosalia Chladek and Hanna Berger. How would Emanuelle Phuon tackle Bejart’s pulsing “The Rite of Spring”? Keith Sabado gallantly navigated from the formality of fifth position to the hiccups of hoofing!
 
Remarkable about Yvonne Rainer and the Judson Church dance in which she participated during the 1960s was not just tackling new material (tasks, games, risks), and developing or deconstructing it imaginatively, but also dropping theatrical disguises, letting the dancers be seen as themselves. Rainer is doing that again with her current collaborators.