New Works, New Theaters

"Site Series (Inside Outside)"
"Skies Calling Skies Falling"
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
The Diane B. Wilsey Center
War Memorial Building
San Francisco, CA
October 12, 2017

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano 2017

Margaret Jenkins opened her 43^rd season with dancers that were not even born when she started her company in San Francisco, after having been an original member of the Twyla Tharp Company for two years and then decided she wanted to make her own work in her hometown San Francisco. What exactly prompted her to return to a place that's lively, though not exactly known for a thriving post/modern environment, remains somewhat of a puzzle. But clearly the City remembers her. Opening Night at the refurbished War Memorial Building was packed, and the over fifty crowd held the majority. They clearly knew a good thing when they had the opportunity. Jenkins’ double bill was everything we have come to expect from this remarkable choreographer; it was cool, brainy and lush.

Kristen Bell of Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Photo: Tom Kubik

For this evening Jenkins had re-worked "Site Series (Inside Outside)", a flexibly structured work performed in a variety of inside and outside venues. Here, with the audience in the round, the War Memorial Education Center was supposed to suggest a living room. Despite some plastic props, touches of warm lights and furniture, this cool gray space didn't look inviting. Despite the "hominess", it was more of an arena than a convivial place to gather. As the dancers, dressed in dark/blue green, walked in from all sides, they posed themselves like pieces of sculpture; what felt constricted became even more so. But then dancers began to separately themselves. Kristen Bell sat in corner playing an imaginary piano that sent its notes up into air. Standing toe-to-toe with the audience, Kelly Del Rosario, with his back to the stage, stared impassively through us. We might as well not have been sitting there. Tall, lanky Brendan Barthel rose from a first-row seat as if entering a fashion show. Margaret Cromwell exploded into turns and leaps that look unstoppable. Chinchin Hsu passed like a storm to hang on to someone's calf for a tiny caress. At one point she folded herself into a stool for a resting Del Rosario. What had been a sterile unfriendly environment gradually began to fill with a pulsating energy as dancers exploded into distinct solos, duets that grew and faded or opened into a trio because Alex Carrington jumped in. Brady and Barthel had to feel each other out. Hsu and Cromwell couldn't be more different from each other yet their arms found a common language. What had been isolated individuals -- even in the audience -- began to feel like a plausible tribe, fragile and temporary as it was.

The world premiere of "Skies Calling Skies Falling" took place in the War Memorial's second new venue, the circular Taube Theater, whose carved stonewalls, domed ceiling, marble floor were previously known for dreadful acoustics. But a newly installed, excellently individualized sound system enhanced Thomas Carnacki's splendid score of music and enhanced noise elements. A few times I almost felt that the sky was indeed falling. The force of Carnacki's work exerted an almost physical pressure on the dancers. The piece also included verbal texts that I unfortunately, never caught.

Jenkins had explained that "Skies" was generated from the concept of "shock" --  personal, political, social and natural. (Particularly poignant at a moment when Northern California is burning ). 

The theater's height with its probably 50 foot back wall offered Jenkins a splendid opportunity to push the action outside the theater. Hi-Jin Kang Hodge and David Hodge's video drones caught the dancers in what looked a huge abandoned quarry. Dressed in all white, they looked lost but they also could stretch to shadow height ready to invade but again and again they shrank into whirling specks of dust -- chaff blown away.  Once the video spilled onto the performance space for the live dancers as if the shadows could be become. For the stage Mary Domenico enhanced the all-white costumes with huge skirts and a red one underneath. What had been powerfully shadowy, acquired a full-blown body.

The choreography for this tribe thrust forward in a group, but also reversed its direction when the dancers walked in a line, bent over, heads down, stepping to a common beat. A disturbing image, yet familiar. But they also gathered into small groups that dissolved as fast as they had formed. Strength and fragility somehow held each other up. Gestures became important: covering your face, fingers curling and opening, signaling to a colleague. Pulled to the ground, they also reached up, fingers curled and stretched. Groups billowed and dissolved. As the piece seemed to reach its end, dancers walked out only to return to start another sequence. Why two endings -- just to defy expectations?  Despite this flaw, "Skies" is a hauntingly beautiful work, deeply considered by an artist in maturity.