In Full Sunlight: Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works in “Small Dances”
Saturday, September 3, 2022
2pm
Great Meadow, San Francisco Botanical Garden (Golden Gate Park)
By Jill Randall
Editor's note: Please find here the writing/response to the performance as well as a 13 minute audiofile of the author reading aloud this writing. Select whichever format works for you to experience the reflection.
September is one of the best months to experience San Francisco. It is a time of year with bright sunshine and an invitation to come and experience the city, especially outdoors. I made the trek from the East Bay to check out Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works’ latest outdoor project. It was a trafficky adventure to get there and to park, but once I arrived the stress of the past hour and a half was gone. Joy/sun/dancing begins.
There are four dancers/collaborators in the big grassy meadow of the San Francisco Botanical Garden (Golden Gate Park) and one musician, Clark Buckner, who is sitting off to the side on a blanket. How to describe some of the first movements and sounds? The four dancers are in the big open space with a few feet between each other. As dance educator Sheila Kogan describes these spots - as “perfect spots” - you spread out “far away from everyone and everything.” Styles Alexander stands and expansively arches to the sun. Samuel Melecio-Zambrano is on their back, holding up their head with their bent arms. Phoenicia Pettyjohn is kneeling and upright, and Emily Hansel offers alternating small shoulder moves while standing. Clark Buckner’s music is electronic - some recorded and made prior to the event while other sounds and recitations will happen in real time.
I brought a blanket, per Jennifer’s pre-show Instagram message, and I take off my shoes.
The first section is sparse. Four lives in motion - at the same time but in separate places. It accelerates in motion and motivation. I think about public and private moments, our existence, our co-existence.
I miss a few seconds due to notetaking, and I look up to see that Phoenicia has a chair. It is the symbol of our pandemic time (bound, stationary). She is traveling through space carrying it. After a short amount of time, she places it down and dances next to it.
My mind goes towards improvisational practices. I am not certain that some of the sections are improvised but I am guessing they might be. With improv practices or co-collaborative phrasemaking with artists in the project, we experience 4 or more different languages (i.e. all of the collaborators plus the choreographer/director). Is my dance mind seeking motif, unison? Why?
Samuel is now dancing near Phoenicia and the chair. Call and response. A section with silence. Emily and Styles are sitting and watching in the meadow space.
The sun
+ Silence
+ Attentive eyes
Why art in the meadow? Why public space? Why both planned and unplanned audience members? Just some questions crossing my mind at this moment in the performance.
There is a break. Emily and Samuel walk stage left and Phoenicia takes the chair away to the right. Samuel is now over by Clark and Jennifer. There is a bicycle,and Samuel turns the bike over, so the wheels are up and in the air. Styles is left alone in the meadow.
I write down the phrase “Full Sunlight.” That’s what I would name this dance. Our lives in full view, complete view.
What is Styles’ sound score? The wind in the trees; two different sirens. The sound score of San Francisco.
Styles is such an incredible mover and improviser. It feels like Styles is recounting a story or memory through their improv score.
Clark now records Samuel spinning those bicycle wheels. More electronic sounds play.
Hop
Kneel
Lunge
Twist
Wring
Squat drop + stand back up
Sinewy
Circling
Go
Go
Pause
Swatting bugs
And more bugs
(Styles’ moves)
Jennifer had mentioned in the introduction/welcome about “small dances.” I appreciate these short chapters/episodes.
Far away from me - far like 75 yards in front of me - Phoenicia and Styles make a small duet. Moving without accompaniment again. Contact/touch/connection.
My mind transposes the production for a few moments into other spaces. This is excellent post-modern dancing in front of me. I could be sitting at the Forum at Yerba Buena, CounterPulse, or the Berkeley Art Museum. I am envisioning formal white boxes for a few minutes. Then I come back to today’s dancing space, the Great Meadow/SF Botanical Garden/outdoors/San Francisco.
Emily Hansel now comes out to the main space with a helium tank and blows up a marigold yellow balloon, marigold like her shirt. A teeny tiny moment and thought.
Again my mind goes to post-modern dance - the easeful and pedestrian vocabulary, sounds/silence, individuality. I ask myself again, “Why outside?” But now I am able to answer the question for myself. Outside for delight. I come back to author Ross Gay and finding delight. Delight of modern dance in this great meadow.
Quietly enjoying
Watching
Taking In
See-hear-think-feel
Together,
Today
Outside in full sunlight
“The sun shone on me a bit differently today,” Styles shares live with a mic in hand. Yes.
“Every cell alive.”
Styles is reciting a poem. Is it their poem? Jennifer’s? Collaboratively written?
A trio comes together - Emily, Styles, and Samuel. The sound is now vocals manipulated, I assume with a looping machine. I come back to a favorite theme of mine - the juxtaposition of our city life and nature. Samuel takes that balloon and gives it to a child at the opposite end of the meadow.
Next there is a playful section with Emily and Samuel putting on light plastic pants and a vest - Emily and Samuel hold a mic and record the crinkly sound of their new clothes. The duet is lighthearted; I notice this is the first time I have laughed during the performance.
A dance of small dances
Small moments
Tasks, memories, explorations
These 4 dancers, Jennifer, Clark -
This moment in our lives
I am thinking about the asymmetry of our lives and connecting with the arhythmic nature of our current lives.
More rhythmic music, like earlier on in the dance, plays. Then the piece calls us to look stage left. Phoenicia begins a solo - a quiet traveling solo back into the main meadow space. Then for the only time in the event, a recorded tune other than Clark’s is used. The Al Green soul tune “Tired of Being Alone” plays for a few measures. “I’m tired of being alone. Help me girl as soon as you can.” Our anthem for crawling out of the pandemic!
Samuel comes closer to the audience on my side of the meadow and takes off their shoes. Another incredible solo moment is explored with spiraling, lunging, expansive and expanding movement.
I am back to the idea of delight. I am thinking about the planned and unplanned audience. Watching/absorbing/questioning/connecting. Making personal connections.
As Samuel completes their solo and runs off stage left, they break into a smile. Does exertion and endurance take us to a place of ease, joy, presence?
As the piece nears its end, all of the dancers come back into the meadow space with all of the props (plus a roll of blue painters tape and a spool of ribbon). Chair, bike, bike pump, helium tank, plastic outfits.
The body shares
The body exposes
Movement becomes dancing
with purpose
+intention
+flow
A blue tape web is made over the overturned chair; strings and mess cover space. Each dancer is doing their own little absurd solo with the props.
We are living parallel lives. For the third time in the performance, an electronic score offers a cinematic feel. I think of Miranda July’s Me, You, and Everyone We Know. There is a sense of wanting, of solo-ness. At the same time, outside here in the SF Botanical Garden, a wedding party is passing on the path right behind me. (The potential for togetherness; proclaiming togetherness!)
I am thinking about:
Entanglement; connectivity
Nearness; self-space
Just bodies; bodies+items
The dance concludes with a final section of the dancers in close proximity, seeing each other, switching places.
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Pulling words from Jennifer’s post-performance speech:
…to gather
in public spaces
for free art
in urban landscapes
in community
Thank you to Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works for a beautiful hour together, and thank you to the intended and unintended fellow audience members who collectively watched, felt, absorbed, and connected with art in full view and full sunlight this afternoon.
Jill Randall is the founder/director of Life as a Modern Dancer and the Artistic Director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, CA.
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Related posts:
Resources on Site-Specific Dance for College Courses (Updated July 2022)
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