Movement Research Fall Festival 2008 at the Judson Memorial Church

Monday, December 8th, 2008

Inside the historical church, for which an entire era of dance was named, Movement Research hosted their regular Monday night performance. It is geared toward experimental works and works-in-progress from artists chosen by a panel each quarter. The stage is not raised but rather, a marble floor in a beautiful congregational room of the famous church. Plastic chairs are set up in an L shape around the floor closing in the space. It is very intimate setting and inviting for informal showings such as these.
On this night, Generique opened the show performed by a group called Embassy of Nature is Fucked. Five chairs were set up on stage and as explained in the program, four dancers and a dramaturge came out acting as though they had just finished a show. The audience is asked to participate in a hypothetical post-show discussion of the piece.
The spoken improvisation was a combination of questions asked from the audience members and the “dancers’” questions to the audience. It was a goofy discussion that embellished on typical modern dance compositional woes such as, “What was the meaning of the Swedish text in the third section?” and “I didn’t like the costumes. Whose decision was it to be naked, and what was it’s significance as well as the use of bodily fluids?” Although the “dancers” and the “dramaturge” did a good job of sticking to the story as it developed and answered the bizarre questions without breaking character and in all seriousness, the questions about the significance of the piece were mumbled and mostly unanswered. The real question that was not being answered was the point of the Generique exercise. It was entertaining, as I found myself laughing out loud in my seat, but as far as generating ideas for a piece or getting a response from an audience about what they are interested in, nothing original was brought up. I must say that I was impressed at how the audience quickly caught on to the game, getting brave with their questions trying to catch the “dancers” off guard, and their inclinations toward making fun of typical modern dance. Nobody can make fun of dance like a modern dancer. But, with all that said- Generique was not a dance performance, it was an acting exercise that left me asking “Why?” even more than a dance without an apparent context would, and maybe that was the point. Dance as art needs to be discussed just as much as any other art form. If it does not pose a question it will not be thought about and will simply fall in the thousands of forgotten dance pieces performed throughout the past few decades. Thus, the most interesting thing about Generique was that it was asking the audience to discuss a performance that never took place, and in so doing the audience had to draw upon past experiences with dance. What developed from the forum of the hypothetical piece was a silly but visually disturbing half improvised dance with a sound score that included ten different languages and lacked any silence whatsoever, including a sentimental moment halfway through the piece when the dancers where lying in a line listening to bird calls. Is that what the audience expects to see from dance or is that their worst nightmare? My guess is that it is somewhere in between.
The Second act was Powered by Emotion, performed by Marten Spangberg, the current head of the program in choreography at the University College of Dance in Stockholm. If the Embassy of Nature is Fucked’s performance simply raised some brows, Spanberg’s work had a much stronger reaction. Nearly a third of the audience was out of the seats before it was finished. It could have been due to the length, which was just over three quarters of an hour long, or because the last twenty minutes or so did not involve anything the audience might have expected from a dance performance. Let me explain.
After a short introduction, which was hard for me to understand both because he was speaking very softly and because of his accent that was muffled by the echo of the space, Spanberg began dancing to a track recording of a “reconstruction of the Goldberg variations by J. S. Bach, interpreted by Glenn Gould, improvised by Steve Paxton, filmed by Valter Werdin.” The music is light and beautiful and the style is assumedly well known by everyone watching, even if they haven’t heard this version or these variations before now. Spanberg, as explained before he began, has performed this before, usually on a stage in a theater. He was wearing grey pants that lacked much give so there was a level of restriction seen in the movement of his legs, and a black classic Coca-Cola t-shirt. Whether or not this was his usual costume was not addressed beyond the fact that he usually wears ballet slippers but was afraid the floor was too slippery and so wore black socks instead.
As a whole, his movement never went beyond mid-range. It was very much internal and except for a few moments when a movement of the head or a choreographed focus change was cued by the music, Spanberg’s gaze was down. It had the appearance of almost being marked but very highly choreographed at the same time. It was extremely musical but not in an overtly Mickey Mouse way, although it was comical in certain sections due to the quirky movement vocabulary. About ten minutes in, as a new variation was beginning, he seemed to have lost his place, he asked the music technician to restart the track and after he still failed to regain composure decided to restart from the beginning. Although some audience members were in disbelief, he repeated the entire first part without fail and then continued onto the final remaining variations. It was an interesting choreographic choice. Even trained eyes don’t see everything when watching dance. I wish I could see all dance performances at least twice before making a strong opinion about them, however, I often do not want to witness it again, or there just never is enough time. Despite the audience’s groan at having to watch the first ten minutes again, I feel Spanberg was making more of a personal statement than just that he messed up and should start again. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that in real life and everyone just accepted that possibility?
Believing the show to be over, or just needing to go home, a few people left at the end of the variations. After a brief pause, Spanberg came back into the space this time with a standing microphone and a small packet in his hand. For the next fifteen minutes or so, Spanberg serenaded the audience with what sounded like traditional Mexican folk music. Through, four tracks of acoustic guitar and percussion, he sang the lyrics written on his CD pamphlet with gusto and side step dancing. The first song had the audience laughing, and thinking, “Where did this come from?” The second song came as a surprise, “He’s really singing another one? Where is this going?” The third song had many people leaving most likely out of the fear that he was going to go through an entire album. Some of those that stayed tried to get into the music by clapping to the beat, but it didn’t last long. By the fourth song, only two-thirds of the audience remained, and only a handful were actually paying attention to Spanberg. Conversations were started among friends, people were mingling around the chairs, waving at people across the room, pulling out their phones and sending text messages. The audience applauded after the fourth song ended, and in the silence with Spanberg waiting, people hesitated not knowing if that was the end or if another song would start up again. A soft piano began the next track and a reprise of one of the variations would finish Powered by Emotion. Spanberg didn’t reprise his movement from the first section but rather internalized it all. He wasn’t completely still but his focus shifted slightly and was much higher than before, the movement was minimal with an occasional gesture and movement of his torso but nothing too sudden. His presence was captivating, even after the fifteen minutes of confusion and distraction. Of all the things that I thought about during the show, (debating whether I should just go home, what I needed to do the next day, wondering what a friend was up to that night) one thing that I decided for myself was that it’s not over until it’s over. I had to stay until he was finished, I had to give him that and I am very glad I did.