Youth, Slow And Fast

Gay City News
by Brian McCormick
12/06/2007

Despite stark content differences, structuralists and semiologists could equally love the works of Beth Gill and Daniel Linehan presented at Dance Theater Workshop November 28 - December 1.

For Gill’s wholly fascinating quartet “Eleanor & Eleanor,” the artist frames the space with two-and-a-half quasi-Islamic floating arches made of white electrical casing, designed by Jeff Larson. Joe Levasseur complemented this motif with two shifting archways of light on either side on the stage, subtle transformations of incandescent direction and intensity, and with other special lighting events to highlight specific moments in the dance.

These focused elucidations served as special signifiers in a dance where every motion is otherwise equally weighted with meaning - or purported lack thereof.

While much of the action takes place in front of the two complete arches, the suggested continuation of the shape adds meaning to the formalist choreography.

The movement itself isn’t slow, but there are long, deliberate pauses between simple one-action moves. In conjunction with silence and Jon Moniaci’s ambient, white noise score, the viewer’s perception of time is stretched.

Changes between Danielle Goldman and Eleanor Hullihan, wearing identical beige tops and gray slacks, lying on the stage with their bodies fixed and oriented in the same direction, are noticed almost as an after-thought, as the illusion and expectation for sameness is challenged. They achieve unison at different moments, and later move in canon, rolling on their pelvises.

Following their duet, Julie Alexander and Kayvon Pourazar, in matching pink shirts and brown pants, enter from opposite sides, meet at center, pause, walk to front, pause again, and return to their starting points and repeat the sequence. Their symmetrical mirror image contrasts to the image of the fraternal twins exhibited by the two women.

After an aerobic trio on the side of the stage with the half-arch, Pourazar and Danielle circle around to the front of the stage, she steps into his arms, and he carries her to the back of the stage. He loops around again, and then lies beside her.

A distant Slavic song scrapes at the limits of audibility, and Alexander enters behind the arches, and stands. As the music begins to disintegrate, she walks through the second arch and around to the front, pauses, and then repeats her action. It is as roundly welcome as it is expected. A rare choreographer can satisfy with one repetition.

Daniel Linehan, on the other hand, employs incessant repetition as his choreographic anchor, tapping in to the sign of the circle self-placed at center. He invites the audience to sit on stage around him on uncomfortable metal folding chairs for his solo “Not About Everything.”

At the stage’s midpoint, several books and magazines are arranged in a ring. Paper streamers of blank white cash register tape radiate from the objects on the floor up into the fly space, creating an arena or open cage-like feeling, and a spectacular visual design on the very cheap, using loaded signifiers.

Linehan enters the space, steps into the circle, and slowly looks around at his viewers, making eye contact as he does.

He begins to spin and also speak, first repeating the number one over and over in quick bursts, along with a recorded version.

The spinning never ceases until the end, nor does the talking. “This is not about everything” eventually becomes “This is not about desperation,” “endurance,” and even “stay the course,” which is punctuated with hot light and bent elbows. Early on, as you wonder how he can sustain that kind of action, his words intercept the thought, and he tells us, “A person can get used to anything.”

Over the course of the 20-plus minute dance, Linehan alters his pacing, his legwork, and, especially, the way he uses his arms - to snap around and speed up his turns, to smack against his chest when he asks, “Do you know who I am?” and to pull tightly into his body and grab at his torso.

Linehan spins, eventually stripping down to his underwear, all the time insisting, “This is not about spinning,” “Iraq, Pakistan, AIDS, social injustice,” and “this predominantly white audience,” to which Levasseur adds another hot flash.

The lighting becomes frenetic, punctuating each denial like electronic exclamations - as when four circles of moving or “intelligent lights” pop out from center and quickly disappear into the four corners when Linehan avers, “This is not about me being clever.”

Linehan may not have invented the personal-is-political autobiographical solo, or the idea of placing audience members in each other’s line of sight, but he is an artist struggling to balance the morals of life as an artist in a country that has been spinning out of control for the last seven years.

He wrote a check, spoke his mind publicly, and made something about it, adding a quiet little dance at the end of slowly melting plies in fourth position, and roll ups in parallel - just a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Call it young, call it simple, and call it a success.