Teen Reviewers on David Neumann

Here are three different views on David Neumann / advanced beginner group’s feedforward from High 5 Tickets to the Arts dance TRaC students taught by Brian McCormick:

A Bag of Mixed Feedforward
By Diana Poon

David Neumann’s feedforward is an unconventional dance-satire of the sometimes ridiculous worlds of athletes and sports. Although the script is quirky and rife with well-delivered punchlines that could make any of stony-faced, self-serious athlete crack a smile, the performance fails in maintaining its insisting charm to the end (which I missed, because I was sleeping). It causes one to wonder if Neumann could have done better had he presented the performance as a play.

But the reasons behind the adaptation of the script to dance are clear enough: the calculated, repetitive movements that athletes spend years perfecting are easily transposed into the world of dance, where corporeal flexibility and regularity are also favorably looked-upon. The choreography in feedforward reflects these concepts well enough. Dancers run and stretch all over the stage, leaping and grunting in time with each other. The movements are so regular that the rhythmic squeaks and thumps of sneakers fill in for the soundtrack for most of the performance.

Consistent as most of the movements are, there are times when the choreography degenerates into mayhem and rage. Neumann presents his characters on two levels: the first is the innocuous mask of good sportsmanship, camaraderie, and friendly competition, represented by predictable movements and “beautiful days”. The next level is pure frenzy: the players’ ranks break, creating artistic tension. Underneath the athletes’ gleaming veneers there lies hatred for their opponents. It is an unreasonable, petty hatred, unwarranted by superficial circumstances. Neumann makes this clear by satirizing sports, emphasizing that they are just games and exaggerating how silly athletes and announcers present themselves. Even the halftime show, which is traditionally meant to be entertaining and rousing, is forced and artificial. We only laugh at the overuse of the “sex sells” motto at half-time shows. It’s a pity the show couldn’t be as entertaining and rousing throughout, but for a performance about superficiality, it’s pretty profound.

_____

feedforward
By ZaraKessler

America’s favorite pastime has just gained a bit more glitter. David Neumann’s advanced beginner group’s “feedforward,” presented from October 23-27 and October30-November 3, embellished Adidas with colorful gems (the work of Kara Feely), sports with dance, and dance with comedy.

Dance Theater Workshop’s stage became a ballpark, a sports arena, and an ice skating rink within the 90-minute performance. A parody and comedy of the world of commercial sports, feedfoward left its audience gasping for breath amidst laughter. The performance began with a drawn-out introduction, mocking sportscasters, commenting on the splendid nature of the day, the conditions under which the game will take place. Then came several dance sequences reflecting the highs and lows of professional sports and sports broadcasting. While much of the night centered around America’s favorite pastime, baseball, there were also hilarious scenes and comments about ice skating, movements reflecting a fight, a half-time show equipped with an obscene mascot and a call from a viewer at home. A cast of nine trickled onto and off the stage in large group numbers as well as drawn out solos and partnering sequences, constantly switching off between dancing and speaking. Three additional “spectators” dressed in orange jumpsuits, watched from the sidelines, serving the practical purpose of stagehands as well as the artistic notion of fans “imprisoned” by the game.

The choreography had multifaceted meaning beyond the jokes—hilarious though they were they were—and movements that filled the stage. As Neumann poked fun at the flowery, embellished language of sportscasters, or the in coherent mumblings of the umpire, he simultaneously showed his audience the physical grace and beauty found in sports, the splendor of the movements we see on TV or from the stands. Slow-motioned movements set to the music of the trombone highlighted the true grace in athleticism, beyond the tricks, beyond the triple-loop double twist. Moreover, we saw the in the purest of all lights the athleticism present in dance. The text by Karinne Keithley was interspersed flawlessly among the movements. It was selective enough to assure us that this is truly a “dance” piece, but present enough to keep us ravenous for more. Among the dancers, Lily Baldwin stood out with her impeccable technique, spunky style, and bizarre yet entertaining portrayal of a “caller from home.”

Yet, feedforward went from exhilarating to boring, fantastic to banal over the course of the hour and a half, much in the way that many baseball games tend to. Midway through the performance the jokes started to get stale, the movements became repetitive, and the audience was left hoping for an intermission (their wishes were not answered). The drawn-out slow, muted solo that finished the piece didn’t help such boredom. The meaning, the contemplation, was fully apparent, yet it would have been just as apparent in about half the time. The audience felt as though it was watching from the stands, and by the seventh inning, we indeed needed a stretch. The fact that the final solo ended the show was indeed an interesting choreographic choice; a night that started with excitement and laughter terminated in lonely dullness.

Many of us who would much rather venture to La Bayadere than the Cardinal’s game found ourselves capable of spending an hour thinking and joking about sports transformed into dance. For the last half hour, we simply were just as bored as we would have been during the eighth inning of the baseball game. Perhaps this is what Neumann was trying to present to us, to urge us to feel the way the spectators do. In that case, I salute him, he did his job well; I was undoubtedly bored by the end. The only problem was I didn’t have the ability to change the channel.

_____

Dance Review: “feedforward”
By Ivana Ng

David Neumann’s “feedforward,” performed at the Dance Theater Workshop October 30 to November 3, needed—and offered—little explanation. It was clear from the beginning that this show would be about athletics; the sterility of the gymnasium setting said so. And so did the grunting noises that the dancers made throughout the show (Anna Kournikova would know what I’m talkin’ about).

The show, performed by Neumann’s “advanced beginner group,” began with Taryn Griggs moving robotically across the stage, her arms and legs spread apart as if she were a Barbie doll. Her expressionless face, her white tennis uniform lined with silver sparkles, the high-pitched voice that came out of her mouth in bursts of detached aggression—everything about her was somehow surprising, somehow ironic, and yet so intriguing.

“Feed-forward” is a term that describes a system that reacts to changes in its environment. So it didn’t come as a surprise that Neumann choreographed the full-length piece with his cast. There was a sense of calculated exploration and discovery as the dancers moved about the gym, making the swiping motions of racket to tennis ball and jumping across the room and attempting triple salkows and triple lutzes. Their deadpanned faces, the hostility between dancers ( or opponents), the way they grunted as if this were a rugby game—it was all a study of the human body in action, of the way an athletic game can be feed-forward.

“feedforward” alluded to so many sports—football, tennis, figure-skating—that at one point the announcer said, “I don’t know game this is any more.” The piece mixed together sports metaphors and made fun of them too, but the dancers never dwelled on a certain topic for too long. Sure, the commentary (“I can’t read,” “There goes the asthmatic national champion,” “It’s the most beautiful day…they are checking archives to see if there ever were a more beautiful one”) was funny; and yes, the way the dancers crowded in a circle and then broke into antagonistic pairs was interesting—but what did it all mean? There was, in this piece, a lack of depth, of a deeper statement behind each word, each movement.

But that doesn’t mean the show wasn’t funny. The audience laughed out loud throughout, mostly at dancers Matt Citron and Neal Medlyn’s hilarious commentary. They spoke quietly, as if they were the commentators at a golf game. Though a trombone quartet in the corner played music, composed by Eve Beglarian, to accentuate the calculated movements of the dancers, the show could have done without it. As at a game of golf or tennis, the natural sounds of a ball being putted or of Anna Kournikovian grunts would have carried the show, and probably would have made it even funnier.

Never mind the three cheerleaders in pink jumpsuits, or the way the male dancers seem ready to slap each other’s asses, or the well-endowed chipmunk mascot, or the commentary, which is humorous in an aggressively deadpan way. All these elements seemed to be thrown together and, at the same time, extremely calculated. Which is a marvelous feat in and of itself.