Time-Capsule Choreography
The New York Times
BY Gia Kourlas
Published: April 11, 2008
In his latest work Chris Yon has abandoned what he is best known for: deadpan humor wrapped in the self-conscious pretense of “What’s a guy like me doing in a dance like this?” It is an encouraging sign. “Hugo,” essentially a duet for Taryn Griggs and Jeff Larson, thumbs backward and forward through time as defined by a catalog of gestures, both nonsensical and descriptive, but threaded together with rigor.
Seen on Wednesday night at Dance Theater Workshop, the work is modeled, rather inconceivably, after a time capsule: a snapshot of the present to be discovered 50,000 years into the future. Apart from the electronic sound design by Justin Jones and Mr. Yon, which reverberates with imagined sounds of the cosmos and bits of Bing Crosby, the sci-fi approach is judiciously vague.
“Hugo” starts off with a video by David Bagnall in which Ms. Griggs and Mr. Larson appear at a few outdoor locations, among them the Unisphere at the site of the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Queens and a rooftop. But the meat of “Hugo” occurs on the stage. Heavy black curtains part, revealing the dancers, who wear matching striped shirts and contrast still positions — one arm or both are raised — with quick, backward walks that skitter in curving paths across the floor.
The phrases, repeated and inverted, gradually take on a hypnotic quality, as if a lifetime of physical language were being distilled into a dozen or so moments. In “Hugo” Mr. Yon uses repetition as a tool to practice his composition. The overall landscape is far more important than the individual strokes, and while Ms. Griggs is adept at executing the movement, it is Mr. Larson who, with exceptional precision and elegance, imparts a noble, timeless tranquillity. He makes the choreography worth watching.
“Hugo” concludes with a song written and performed by Nicky Paraiso and Karinne Keithley. It’s a strange duet, awkwardly performed, with cryptic lyrics like “Please tell Hugo, nothing has attached itself yet.” Perhaps in the future that will make sense.
Brian McCormick (April 15th, 2008 at 1:21 pm)
La Jetée En Spirale
Chris Yon imagines a future remembering
Two large images of the ancient earth planet projected on either side of the windowless room where the time capsule was opened. A small screen, so familiar to the vintage humanoids entering in mostly pairs but some strays as well stood empty on the stage, receiving full attention. Static alerted the dumb creatures to silence their units.
Antique words printed on rare paper made from trees reminded the two-leggers what paper and screens are all about, specifically, “to contrive techniques proper to the recording, communication, analysis, and defense of unimagined existence.”
So images flowed — a couple of strays, one male, one female, separated by a thick black line splitting the screen. Striped, like fish, they sat, stood, moved, gestured, danced, and ran through their decrepit, void environs and across the border into the unseen. Their likenesses faded, strobed, and interlaced. Chris Marker and Baudrillard synapses fired, even after adjusting stimulus input levels.
The document, recorded in the past, established the observed truth — the future has already happened. (Of course it’s been proven, but the delusion of creationism continues to infect the populace, despite the availability of transgenic vaccinations against such debilitating viruses.)
The screen was removed. The strays, appearing unchanged from their representations, appeared, two-legged, in the flesh. They attempted to show how the lexicography discovered in the historical record might have been used.
Loops of audio data churned out snatches of suspense, slapstick, and “science fiction,” as the duo repeated and elaborated their semaphoric sentences, varying speed, quality of movement, and specific details.
A moving sculpture, literally framed by rectangles of light, the female called Griggs and the male called Larson corkscrewed into the spaces between each other, sometimes colliding, overlapping, breaking like water on jetty.
At the body of the text, like a spiral, the repeated message moved further and further from its source with every iteration; at the same time, its shape and structure became clearer, the code revealed itself.
The strays stood together; it was inevitable they would pair, since the no stray law is now strictly enforced for the purposeful benefit of repopulating the Ur colony on Europa.
A large black object that could produce a surprisingly beautiful analog music when it was touched was wheeled out, and a male called Paraiso sat with it, while a female called Keithley stood with an old fashioned standing microphone. Dressed in black, they evoked the high classic period, long since past.
Paraiso touched the black and white array of the large object (made of wood, I later discovered), each touch producing a different sound, with overtones. He and Keithley sang to and about Hugo, who is everyone and everything. They harmonized, which tickled my nano-hearing implants in a vaguely sexual and very satisfying way.
Hugo had been recorded, re-created, and remembered in a song. I uploaded the time capsule experience to the neural net. Hugo has been having amazing dreams ever since, of stray bears, stars, elephants, and teardrops.