Screenshot from Utopia, capturing the 9 actors in the production
With Appreciation and Admiration: A Few Musings on Utopia
By Jill Randall
Eight months into quarantine life as a dancer, I have dabbled in a few online art experiments, as an audience member a handful of times and by producing two projects. We long for those moments of escape, of delight, and of a small taste of hope. Cutting Ball Theater’s online premiere of Utopia got me to feel, see, and experience in ways I have not in so long. Thank you.
Utopia is a brand new play by Charles L. Mee. Maximizing the online format - the play is masterfully edited with split screens, Brady Bunch squares, sound effects, and interwoven visual art. The project brought together Cutting Ball Theater with RAWdance and Creativity Explored.
The vignettes, non sequitur transitions, and patchwork of stories is reminiscent of childhood memories of episodes of The Electric Company and stories of Dr. Seuss. Whimsy, humor, absurdity, and poetic language are maximized here, but don’t be fooled. The deep themes of love, relationships, and dreams are still present.
Dancer Michaela Cruze. Photo by Hillary Goidell.
The show is 75 minutes in length. For the first 50 minutes, there are a few glimpses of dancers and movement interludes to whet your appetite. Personally, I would have liked these early dancing scenes to last an ounce longer (like 60 seconds versus 30 seconds in length). Around 50 minutes into the play, the dance section kicks into full force and lasts for the rest of the production (nearly 25 minutes in length).
We go from the play (actors, words, and frontal film close ups) to an ensemble of 7 dancers all filmed outside in San Francisco. We move into full bodied movement and filming the whole body.
The modern dance form was perfect for this play. Abstraction, juxtaposition, and gestures were all totally at home in Utopia. Katerina (Katie) Wong’s choreography brought the themes and characters of the play into the “real world” outside. The dancers scan and see, change directions, change levels, bounce, extend, and spill over into forward spinal curves. The choreographic phrases bring forth the theme of inertia; once in motion, you stay in motion.
Dancer Jhia Jackson. Photo by Hillary Goidell.
Due to COVID-19, the dancers are masked at all times. While this does still feel odd to view in professional performances, even 8 months into quarantine, the audience’s eye gets used to it after a few minutes. This is our true reality and masked existence.
Wong’s choreography echoes the delight and whimsy of the first section of the play with the cast of actors. But she literally and metaphorically puts the ideas in motion - to keep going, to persist, to find humor and delight and look outside ourselves. The structure of Utopia reminds me of Crystal Pite’s master work Betroffenheit, whose first section is layered with text, dancing, acting, and props, and then section two heads into abstraction and full bodied choreography without text.
Dance ensemble from left to right: Kelly Del Rosario, Juliann Witt, Jhia Jackson, Katerina Wong, Nick Wagner, and Michaela Cruze. (Dancer Stacey Yuen not pictured here.) Photo by Hillary Goidell.
Logistically, I am in awe of the feat of pulling off this production during our socially distant existence. The craft and blocking of the scenes, building an ensemble, and pulling together so many cast members, props, colors, and throughlines…...I have deep appreciation and admiration for the creative team.
Diving into this project, taking it on, and pulling it off - a symbol of creativity and the magic that art truly brings to our lives as artists and audience members alike….thank you.
Utopia runs for only one more day via Vimeo. Stream it now! (If you purchase it today, on November 15th, you will have access for 7 days to watch it.)
Jill Randall is the Artistic Director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, CA and Director of the Life as a Modern Dancer Blog.
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