Eryc Taylor Dance
A young company's taut thread at Soho Joyce.
November 11, 2010
Eryc Taylor's dances in a November 10, 2010 program at Soho Joyce, are all about anguished situations. They are anything but pleasant, yet we leave the theater with a feeling of release and lightness.
For one, the show holds together. We do not have to make the leap between mindsets and emotions. The five works are made of common material. They are futuristic and portentous, but with good reason.
Ballet technique is part of the mix, and however well executed, it is something of an aside. Taylor absorbs modern and game show contemporary choreography. Yet, the final Terminus delivers a sophisticated vision that's hard to dismiss.
Gierre Godley and Michelle Pellizon in Terminus. >>>
Photo by Satoshi
Drowntown, to a score of futuristic music, is for five. At times, the moves feel forced, especially in the group choreography where women on pointe and barefoot men don't come to terms. They pair in rugged lifts and then break away from each other with dramatic intent. Michelle Pellizon and Gierre Godley move naturalistically, and thus they command our attention from the start. Godley's sudden end is perfectly timed, and if we have questions at this point, we are ready to see more.
An inconclusive duet about an inconclusive relationship, follows. InWraith, Pellizon and Danielle Schulz perform to an impossible score from the Heavy Rain video game. Then, the male duet The Polarity is more theatrical but still unspectacular, despite some wonderful confrontations in the fight choreography. It begins in spotlights that glare out at us, as if to set the daring mood. Godley and Dillon Honiker first stand off in dark business suits. Two women (seconds?,) in form-fitting dresses and pumps, help them remove their jackets. After this ceremony, they tackle, rough and tumble, jumping at each other into the blackout. My companion likened it to Mad Men. These duets are about lack of chemistry, though there are moments when Godley and Dillon make a match.
Pellizon gives her contortionist moves grounding in Taylor's solo The Missing, to music by Daniel Tobias. The mood is level, high anxiety throughout. Taylor interestingly took inspiration from Louise Bourgeois's Cell (Arch of Hysteria.) In this case, the stage is the cell in which the dancer travels. But the perfection and emotion in Bourgeois's earlier and more iconic sculture also comes to mind. Pellizon holds the same, stretched pose as the bronze, backward bowed figure hanging from a cord in Arch of Hysteria.
As she spins to Daniel Tobias's piano music, drops of water spray out from her long hair. Pellizon can pull our heartstrings, so we can forgive some cliché gestures. She is barefoot, her toes are notably clenched and her feet flexed. It hurts to watch her throw herself down and land with a thump. Her fingers are clenched and articulated, while she lies on her side in a loose fetal position. She dances close to the floor after the first phrases and she folds in on herself in a contained sculpted shape, to end. The Missing is a testament to the power of the living moving body as art.
The final Terminus begins with a shape highlighted in a stark beam of light. Isabelle Fernandez sits in a very glorified yoga boat pose to a chugging sound in Tobias's "remix." Wearing sleek black leotards by Keiko and dancing with syncopated musicality, the cast is at its best. They draw out the last quarter of their turns, meetings, and lifts, in expressive rubato. In this opening night performance of Terminus, the bodies are the music. A duet of Fernandez and Danielle Shulz is particularly impressive. Their halting walk forward is full of both reticence and portent.
We leave feeling that if there is a future, this group will help make it worth experiencing.