Dancevert
Dance Place
Washington, D.C.
February 15, 2009
By Lisa Traiger
© 2009 by Lisa Traiger
Dancevert, the Cleveland, Ohio, based modern company, recently relocated to the Washington, D.C. area, makes dances that feel old, a bit out-of-step with contemporary society and mores. The husband-and-wife duo, Tom Evert, former Paul Taylor Dance Company member, and Susana Weingarten, of Ballet Independiente de Mexico, make mostly well-crafted pieces that might have felt new, state-of-the-art, even a bit edgy in the early ‘90s. But, as shown in their retrospective program of duets and solos – their coming out as Washington, D.C. artists – their works have a been-there, done-that sensibility.
Tom Evert’s ode to the presidency, the aptly and obviously titled “The President,” uses the aura of Strauss’s grandly sweeping “Emperor’s Waltz” and stiff-armed and –shouldered mimetic gestures to take down the American presidency and the often underhanded, insidious politicking and wheeling and dealing it requires to get elected and lead. Created in 1986, Evert’s blue-suited president with his stony face and receding hairline recalls Nixon. His stiff-legged, middle-aged waltzing, uncomfortably staccato and hard edged, suggests our former klutz-in-chief Ford. The conniving and underhanded wiliness of Bush 43rd is mostly, not entirely, absent. Frankly, in the wake of newly minted – and graceful – President Obama, “The President” feels uncomfortably out of touch in a city that prides itself in being up-to-the-moment.
Weingarten’s “La Ofrenda” (“The Offering”) is a sensuous but icky pas de deux for the voluptuous dancer and a rubber lizard, which she holds, caresses, listens to secret messages from and so forth. I recollect a distant summer in the ‘90s when two, or maybe even three, area choreographers crafted duets using snakes, among them Lesa McLaughlin and Jan Taylor. At least they used the real thing; Weingarten opted for a rubber replica that gave the duet a static, plasticy feel.
The program’s newest work, “Elements,” used designer Molly Watson’s haunting projected artwork “Midnight Sun,” a glowing orb against inky black that hung over the works throughout the evening. In “Elements” it became a screen for projected video images of air, water, fire and earth. The movement material felt mostly improvised, with Weingarten making her best showing in the sensuous “Fire” section, her arms leaping and undulating like flames, while in the water section Evert’s waving arms and his mincing bent-knee bourrees satisfied the effortless flow of trickling water.
“Ego Act,” Evert’s geometric study using a George Crumb work played by the stringent Kronos Quartet, offers up a disquieting internal battle made visual by two gigantic rubber bands that entrap him at center stage, like a spider's web capturing a fly. In “True Water,” Weingarten unleashes her sexual and sensual energy in a sort of tantric offering. Nude beneath a melon-colored sarong, she quivers and pours out her spiritual desires, her rippling back and flowing length of wavy black tresses the visual stimulus for what is essentially an offering to unnamed gods.
The evening closed with a final duet, Weingarten’s “Truth Naked,” a psychodrama using masks that allows each performer to become, in body if not mind, the other. The idea of overcoming one’s ego in order to connect to another is hinted at, but clarifying the movement motivation for this soul-conquering idea would strengthen the work choreographically.
It’s good to have fresh voices join the Washington, D.C. area dance community. It would be even better if they brought fresher works.
Published February 17, 2009
© 2009 Lisa Traiger
