Nick Blaylock in Full View. Photo by Marissa Mooney.
Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and Categorizing Dance on Camera
By Garth Grimball
How many categories are there for a dance experienced via screen? Dance film. Screen dance. Live streaming dance event. Previously recorded performance. TikTok. The categories bloom and wilt without capturing the aura of the work. Or do the categories suffice but we critics are still trying to review the dance and not the film/screen/stream/recording? Daniel Charon, artistic director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, introduced opening night of the mixed-bill program Home Run as a “screen dance, mini film festival” with a “live, durational installation piece.” A lot of categories to contend with, and contend with them I will, categorically.
Megan McCarthy in Woes. Photo by Daniel Charon.
Woes - Weather Report
The only live piece on the program, Woes, opened and closed the evening and served as transitional viewing between the pre-recorded content. Charon told us we’d be “checking in on them” throughout the evening. The phrase brought to mind a news anchor passing to the meteorologist: And now to Dominica Greene and Megan McCarthy with the improv. Dominica and Megan, what can you tell us? Choreographically Woes was like a storm brewing. Greene and McCarthy folded and unfolded their bodies, clad in white jumpsuits, on a stage delineated by squares of paint. Smeared, the suits turned from cumulus to storm clouds. At the end the two touch for the first time and it’s like a thunderclap.
The cast of Winter's Light. Photo by Daniel Charon.
Winter’s Light - Music Video
Oh, the empty warehouse. Is there another location so beloved aesthetically by choreographers and music video directors? The columns, the giant windows, the eerie spareness. In another time Charon’s choice of setting would feel overdone. Now it’s understood as a spatial necessity. The sextet weaves in and out of solos, duets, and group dancing without touching, all masked. The absence of touch and the space between dancers are addressed intentionally, not as an obstacle, in Charon’s deft choreography. Gestures of measuring become a motif. The camera plays with wide angle shots emphasizing an isolation felt inside with others.
Nicholas Jurica and Corinne Lohner in Don't Chew With Your Mouth Open. Photo by Alec Lyons.
Don’t Chew With Your Mouth Open - Mumblecore Indie Movie/American Apparel ad
This feels like those movies that “elevate mood over plot” but are really an excuse to watch beautiful people bump into each other. In this case the bumping is literal. Don’t Chew has the visual vocabulary of Sofia Coppola and the sensation of watching an inside joke.
Wash created by Stanley and Judith Hallett and directed by Joan Woodbury
Wash (excerpt, 1970) - Experimental, now artistic archaeology
Was anyone else unsettled as a child watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the boat enters the bad-acid-trip tunnel? Wash has a similar vibe. Footage of a car wash, traffic, and dancer silhouettes are superimposed in hyper-saturated reds and oranges. What was once cutting edge technology applied to “be about something” offers a relativity check on how work made today may be viewed in 50 years.
Bashaun Williams and Fausto Rivera in And Again. Photo by Wonderstone Pictures.
And Again - Dance Film
This duet from Bashaun Williams and Fausto Rivera fits most in the Dance Film category of the program - like a visual essay with a thesis and conclusion. The choreography is mirroring-unison and solos. The camera shifts between third-person and first-person points of view adding intimacy to the duet. The dance ends with an embrace. The camera lingers documenting a sensation we all hope to feel again.
Full View - Teaser from Melissa Younker on Vimeo.
Full View - Video Art
The highest budget work has the most DIY sensibility. In the tradition of Nam June Paik and Meredith Monk, Full View has an elaborate set piece and a relatively fixed vantage point. The overall conceit is a prompt realized: Dance Your Quarantine Journey. Eleven dancers (RWDC + Heartland Collective) perform solos in front of a monochrome avocado green living room set. A cloud floats above changing hue like a mood ring. The dancers wear bright colors adding extra pop to their energetic seesawing. It has the visual flavor of immersive art exhibits but with substance instead of selfies. The creative team, led by Molly Heller and Wonderstone Films, use color to elicit the confinement and mania shared in pandemic living. The dancers provide the personal, the private, the feelings maybe we don’t want to admit even to ourselves.
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Dance online granted me the opportunity to be in Oakland and experience this Salt Lake City based company for the first time. Kudos to Daniel Charon and Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company for curating a program of dance online that considers the medium. Each piece has a different relationship to the lens and therefore to the viewer. As an exploration of dance making and sharing in a time when we’re stuck at home, Home Run lives up to its name.
Home Run is available for On-Demand streaming through March 13, 2021. Tickets available here.
Garth Grimball is a writer and dance artist based in Oakland. He is co-director of Wax Poet(s) and hosts the podcast Reference Desk.
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Related posts:
Woodland Creatures, Summer Dance By Garth Grimball
FINDING (HEART): Practices in Improvisation (& Practices in Improvisational Writing) By Molly Heller
My Dance Week: Daniel Charon, Artistic Director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company
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