Hot September Flurries
Blue Theater, through Sept. 30
Fall arrived a few days early at the Blue this year, something you could tell not by a chill in the air but by the autumnal mood in the program of group dances produced for week two of this year’s Hot September Flurries. The eight short works were all made by different choreographers who, as far as I know, were not working from a shared theme. Still, almost all of them evoked a kind of poignancy that keenly felt ache or melancholy common to the time of year when the leaves turn and drop, the world grows cool, and the spreading darkness weighs on us.
That mood was set in the first dance, Lisa Nicks’ I’m Calling You, although it began charmingly enough with adult dancer Caroline Sutton Clark doing a duet with her 3-year-old daughter, Gwendolyn, both of them outfitted with fairy wings. Soon they were joined by Erica Santiago and her kindergarten-age daughter, Crea Narisse Thompson, dressed as princesses, and Andrea Comola and her young son, Louie, in Power Ranger/spaceman attire. Their movements were simple and sweet, recalling child’s play – crawling together, skipping together, going through “London Bridge” – with the occasional spontaneous step from a young one. The bond between mothers and children was so clear – you could see in the kids’ eyes their unrestrained delight in watching Mommy and in playing with her, mimicking her movements. And we felt a delight witnessing them. But they left the stage to Rhianon Renae Kjar and her stepdaughter, Guila Biow, a high school sophomore, whose duet reflected some of the tension between parents and adolescent offspring, the challenges of a child coming into her own as a person. We could see the growing apart of parent and child, and the dance’s third section left us with Christy Sadler Gorman dancing solo, no child to be her partner. The progression left the heart tender.
The dances that followed weren’t wistful in quite that way, but they evoked a similar ache. Some evoked it through conflict, as in Leslie Scates’ Choking Duet, with a man and woman side by side who would be seemingly close one minute, but the next one would seize the other in a headlock or push the other away, moves that repeated in a cycle of acceptance and rejection. Some expressed deep yearning, as in Sharon Marroquín’s Vast Landscape of Nothingness, where three dancers stood apart from one another but made similar gestures: extending an arm, then drawing it back with hand cupped; placing a flat palm upward and looking toward the sky, as if for signs of rain. The slow, winding movements and pained expressions – all feelingly delivered by dancers Caroline Sutton Clark, Steve Ochoa, and Catherine Zahm – bespoke a loneliness and expectation in hard times.
Even the program’s lightest work, David Justin’s delightful comic melodrama Helluva Day, was shot through with some heartache. Justin, sporting a white turtleneck, a gray double-breasted jacket, and an outrageous set of false teeth, spent the dance in vain pursuit of Stephanie Campbell, stylish like a Fifties model, whose moods ranged from frosty disinterest to scorching fury. Even as his horsy countenance rendered Justin’s romantic aspirations laughable, the furrowed brow and pleading eyes communicated his deep feelings for her and the piercing wound left by her rejection of him.
The only dance without a touch on autumn’s shadow on it was Even Deeper, the duet choreographed and performed by husband and wife Matt Williams and Andrea Comola. The piece was a deeply intimate expression of the couple’s love, in which the two glided gracefully from balletic lifts to ballroom twirls to long moments of stillness, lost in each other’s eyes. Each step gentle, each gesture a caress, the dance washed us in a romance pure as rain.
The program was yet another example of the richness of choreographic talent in Austin and the deep pleasures to be found in a showcase such as Hot September Flurries, when their varied styles and gifts may be enjoyed side by side. (Thanks to Ellen Bartel for steadfastly coordinating such works in this and the annual Dance Carousel.) This week, Hot turned cool, leaving us touched and a little more in step with the coming season.
This article appears in September 28 • 2007.