‘Center of Sleep’ is a disjointed work from Yanira Castro

The Canadian Press
Friday, Feb 29th

NEW YORK - Four dancers clad only in pearl necklaces lie intertwined inside a wood and plastic tentlike structure at the back of a crowded stage.

Their interactions are only visible to audience members who navigate their way down the stairs, past a circular wooden structure, rolling stands with semi-reflective sheets of plastic and a heap of clothes to the back corner of the stage in the Bessie Schonberg Theater at New York’s Dance Theater Workshop.

If it sounds like it’s a lot of work to see “Center of Sleep,” a dance installation created by choreographer Yanira Castro, it is.

While the initial discovery proves wonderful and exciting, the constant movement of the dancers and musicians around a large set and a nomadic audience - mixed with disjointed dance phrases and scenes with dialogue - make it difficult to absorb the hourlong work.

After performers Peggy Cheng, Luke Miller, Heather Olson and Joseph Poulson untangle themselves and chant, “Look at us, yeah, we’re beautiful,” they emerge from the structure, dress in multicoloured clothes taken from the pile, dip their heads in a basin of water in a makeshift bathroom at the back right corner of the stage and begin a series of episodes around the space, all referencing intimate and odd behaviour.

As two dancers lunge toward the front of the space, Miller tears apart a pile of bright white comforters, hurling the large sheets at the dancers and the audience surrounding the action. Afterward, couples find their way to newly made beds on opposite ends of the stage. They mock kiss, caress each other’s bellies and Miller cleans Olson’s ears and belly button with a wad of Q-tips in an endearing and comical manner. He then brushes her teeth. Poulson joins them after a laughing romp with Cheng.

These heartfelt scenes are small victories in a piece that is otherwise all over the map.

Another such accomplishment was a solo by Olson set against the back stage wall. She pounds herself against the wall and collapses as if stuck in one spot. Poulson sits at her side, staring as she lashes, moves and lays fetal on the ground. It’s perhaps the only time the audience is able to focus on one dancer in one spot, with hopes that nothing else is going on elsewhere. Poulson uses the set to help the focus, bringing two plastic stands to create a tunnel around Olson with the bathroom walls on the other side.

The performers are brilliant, but it is hard most times to focus on them with the obstructed views.

The men working the effective sound score by Stephen Moore also move around the stage, attaching themselves to white electric wires that hang from the ceiling like placentas. But the effect is distracting and they only add to the crowded stage.

Castro usually excels creating worlds of stark, meticulous beauty. “Center of Sleep” feels less edited and honed than her other works, and suffers for it. But although the work is disjointed, Castro did create images that last, most notably, a captivating and beautiful final solo piece performed by a nude and very pregnant Ashley Steele.

“Center of Sleep” is certainly more dance installation than performance in its concept, but in practice it seemed to lean toward the latter. The work touches on an intimate dreamlike world, but with all the commotion and little space on stage, it’s hard to actually get there.

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