Bending Gender Every Which Way
The New York Times
by ROSLYN SULCAS
Published: June 14, 2008
Photo: Erin Baiano for The New York Times
It’s a mystery why sometimes a few people moving on a stage in apparently random patterns can look so right. In the first 10 seconds — maybe 5 — of Dance by Neil Greenberg’s “Quartet With Three Gay Men,” the oddly graceful, undulating movements of the four dancers, the jangly sounds of Zeena Parkins’s score, and Michael Stiller’s clear, bright light have the immediate effect of a poem. Meaning is compressed and harbored, to be released in thrilling fragments, inconclusive and richly layered.
The quartet was just the prelude in the program presented on Wednesday night at Dance Theater Workshop. The main event was Mr. Greenberg’s new “Really Queer Dance With Harps,” to another score by Ms. Parkins, played live by her and two fellow harpists.
In its first moments, “Really Queer Dance” looks like a companion piece to the opening quartet. Four women, flowers tucked into their hair, walk on singly as the harpists, seated just off center, begin to play a sweet-toned, melodic refrain. Then, like their male counterparts, the women begin slow, individual movement sequences: twisting their upper bodies, flopping arms, doing yogalike balances.
Each moves separately, as if unaware of the others, but when four men join them the movement starts occasionally, almost arbitrarily, to cohere. Suddenly two men are pausing, each with a leg extended to the back, hip jutting. Out of nowhere, all the women lift their legs high to the sides and front, then flop them heavily to the ground. The men run, affectedly limp-wristed, around the stage; when the women do the same, the effect is quite different.
Mr. Greenberg danced with Merce Cunningham’s company for seven years, and watching his dancers in their strange mix of the balletic and the graceless as they collect and disperse on the stage is like watching Mr. Cunningham’s work refracted through a prism. Like Mr. Cunningham’s artistry, Mr. Greenberg’s resonates through its confluence of the random and the necessary; the continuous stream of motion in which no one moment is particularly important and each is beautiful; the almost magical quality of occasional formal symmetries.
It’s quite right that Mr. Greenberg includes the music in the dance’s title, since Ms. Parkins’s thrillingly varied score and the presence of the musicians are as vital to this work as the dancers — all excellent and exceedingly individual in presence.
“Really Queer Dance With Harps” has an evenness of tone that can sometimes lead the mind to wander. But space for the mind to wander and then return to be freshly surprised is also part of what art does. Bravo to Dance Theater Workshop for giving Mr. Greenberg a longer run than usual; you have another week to see this, and you should.
Adventures in Art (June 16th, 2008 at 6:00 pm)
Sometimes an event haunts you for long after you have seen it. For no explicable reason. That makes this show one of the most exciting dance pieces I have seen this season. Kudos to the team!
I am just a casual dance spectator. This is not my attempt to write a review of the show, but share how I felt while I was watching it. And can there be a better accomplishment for a performance - If it can make you stop thinking and just FEEL?
It is not very often that contemporary dance pieces synchronize the energy of male and female dancers as well as Neil Greenberg’s piece does. Not only were the dancers balanced in numbers, the intermittent periods of male-only, contrasting with female-only and then all-hands dancing, complimented each other’s presence by creating a contrast and harmony simultaneously. The isolated movements which were mimiced by a few male and female dancers enhanced that effect. Towards the middle of the show, I felt like various movements came together like pieces of a jigsaw. I remember thinking of a Jackson Pollock.
It was an exceptional opportunity to watch dance set to a live harps ensemble. It is an inspiring score for a dance setting. I felt like the dancers had internalized the melody and flow of the beautiful score, without necessarily following it all the time. The stage setting made the ensemble appear like an anchor to all the dancers. For a part of the performance, I was fixated on the musicians and forgot that I can appreciate the sound and let my eyes wander on the stage. But with every nuance from plucking to percussion, my eyes wandered back to the ladies bathed in golden glow.
A befitting celebration of art to watch in the Pride month!