Inaugural Concert
Case Covers a Modern Master
Reviewed by Elsa Johnson & Victor Lucas
We always go to the annual faculty concert at Case Western Reserve University’s Mather Dance Center. This year it was billed as the Inaugural Concert of what’s now the Dance Department. No more “dance program,” which means what, exactly?
For now the answer is more of the same only better with some interesting new people and an ambitious cover of choreography by Pascal Rioult.
First on the program was Edges (2010) with choreography and set by Artistic Director Gary Galbraith and Video / Art / Music by Cleveland’s own Kasumi. The video was projected onto Galbraith’s set, 4 big panels placed diagonally across the stage. The 4 dancers, Christopher Bell, Kristy Clement, Chun-Jou Tsai, and Ying Xu, appeared in the flesh in front of the panels; when they went behind the panels their life-size images were sometimes projected onto the screens, apparently in real time.
Galbraith is a past master of the interplay between real dancers and their virtual images. In Edges he gave the dancers phrases full of agile fuetes and quarter turns.
Clevelanders have seen a lot of Kasumi’s work, but we like it more in a concert setting like this one rather than an installation. In this performance of Edges the colors were vivid and intense. The clips from lame old sci-fi movies – frowning “scientists” and helmeted “spacemen” – provided an amusing foil for the dancers.
New faculty member Andre Megerdichian provided a fast and technical study for 4 dancers. Titled Game of Thorns, the 6-minute piece apparently took its inspiration from the pencil and paper game, a variation of Hex. An alumnus of Jose Limon Dance Company, Megerdician’s choreography here exemplified the way Limon company and dancers have moved on from the lush – and dated — humanism of the founder’s own choreography to a thoroughly contemporary dance expression. To see ”Game of Thorns” in its entirety, click (here).
Megerdician himself appeared in Kitchen Sink (2009), a duet choreographed by Rebecca R. Levy. The dance began with a kind of prologue in which Megerdician lay prone center stage and Levy sat stage right, smoking. When the music started up it was Patsy Kline singing I Fall to Pieces, which you can hear (here).
I fall to pieces, Each time I see you again, I fall to pieces, How can I be just your friend?
Levy wore a dress with some cleavage showing — thus presenting herself as a woman rather than as a female dancer — and no matter how persistent Megerdichian was, she wasn’t having any – at first. He, wearing an athletic undershirt and pants rather than tights, was very much a guy rather than a dancer. Inverting the gender roles of the song, he was the one who wanted to rekindle the old flame.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers got a lot of film footage out of sublimated mating dances like Kitchen Sink where choreography becomes a metaphor for foreplay and the sexual act. Levy and Megerdichian danced (mostly) upright and without tap shoes but the choreography and their chemistry generated the necessary tension and heat. Just in case there was any doubt about what the dancing was a metaphor for, they relit the cigarette and passed it back and forth after the crescendo, all with very dry humor.
Occupying pride of place at the end of the program was the Case premiere of Views of the Fleeting World. Choreographed by Pascal Rioult (pronounced rhee YOU) and premiered on his company in 2008, Views is the 3rd Rioult work to be presented by Case. We had our say about Views when we reviewed the recent Rioult concert here. Case Dance Department’s cover of this difficult piece was most successful in terms of the actual dancing. Regisseurs Galbraith, Department of Dance Chair Karen Potter, and longtime Rioult collaborator and muse Joyce Herring can take much of the credit for that, but it’s the department’s teachers and ultimately its dancers who deserve praise for mastering Rioult’s vocabulary, which borrows equally from his background in Martha Graham modern dance and contemporary ballet. Consider, for instance, Carissa Bellando’s interpretation of Rain, the striking solo that came midway through Views. In her Rain, Bellando gave us both the sudden falls, which we can attribute to Graham’s influence, and the precise aerial technique and fleet feet which are impossible without considerable ballet training.
Costume construction (by Kerville Cosmos Jack assisted by Rachel Stoneking, Danielle Dowler, and Potter) was also a highly successful aspect of Case’s Views. The long red skirts worn by both men and women in parts of Views could perhaps have used one more run through the dryer with fabric softener, but the pleats, which must have been difficult to maintain through the run, showed ever so nicely as the dancers’ legs opened in 2nd position.
We were surprised to be disappointed by lighting in Views. The opening dance, Orchard, was transcendently bright and beautiful in the Rioult concert (RioultVideo) but Case’s version of the David Finley lighting design left the dancers’ faces in unbecoming shadows. Beautiful projections for Views, designed for Rioult by Brian Clifford Beasley, were a highpoint for us in the Rioult concert. At Case, as adapted by Galbraith, the projections on the back wall were dim and disappointing. If these shortcomings were the result of inadequate lighting equipment, then hopefully the new Dance Department will spring for necessary equipment in the future.
Also on the program, Fade to Snow and Gray (2005) by James Hansen.
We watched the Inaugural Concert of the CWRU Department of Dance on Sun 11/13/11 at 2:30 pm.
Learn more about CWRU Department of Dance at http://Dance.case.edu.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.