Mary Ellen Hunt
Jul. 06,
2002
Moving Arts dancers a bit inhibited at Pavilion show
By Mary Ellen Hunt
TIMES CORRESPONDENT
With a ballpark atmosphere of popcorn, pop music, families and fireworks, Moving Arts Dance gave the Fourth of July weekend an early boost with a lightweight sunset program Wednesday at the Chronicle Pavilion at Concord.
The Pavilion show closes a chapter for Charles Anderson, who is moving on from the directorship of the company, but who has considerably developed the talents of the 14-member troupe in his year at the helm.
Indeed, Moving Arts opened with a credible performance of Anderson's "Hush," set to music from the Bobby McFerrin/Yo-Yo Ma recording of the same title.
In a venue the size of the Pavilion, it was understandable that the dancers needed some time to warm up to the space and the audience. The subtlety of Melissa Ullom's flowing opening solo was swallowed up by the breadth of the stage and even the estimable skills of Holly Morrow and Margaret Tappan, two seasoned and engaging dancers, couldn't keep the work from seeming muted early on. It was not until Morrow bounded out in a series of fast turns and injected a sparkling sense of humor into the choreography that the ballet began to take off.
Anderson has a firm grasp of how to give visual shape to the music, and his work shows evidence of his years at New York City Ballet. "Hush" featured asymmetric patterns and canons reminiscent of works of George Balanchine such as "Concerto Barocco." Nevertheless, one couldn't help feeling that more could have been demanded of the dancers technically. The choreography felt more inhibited than is characteristic of Anderson's other works, the dazzling "Aposiopesis," for instance, and ultimately it was the skills of the individual dancers that made it satisfying.
The company also offered Patrick Corbin's "Psychedelic Six Pack," a slightly trippy, brooding take on the '60s, set to music from such icons as the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix.
Corbin's choreography was at its best in group sections where he kept the dancers moving in the kind of easy, rippling style of his mentor Paul Taylor. The hypnotic circumambulations of "Within You Without You" and the curving of the bodies into extreme shapes paired well with the Indian motifs of the sitar music, but also evinced the self-consciousness of '60s retro.
Vignettes such as those set to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky" sketched out personalities rather than taking a narrative approach, with varying degrees of success. Denise Thomas, who danced the featured role in the three sections, has found more purpose in both her characterizations and her dancing since last spring, although her duet with Patricia Tomlinson was a little lackluster.
Altogether, there was a subdued energy throughout the midsection of the piece, perhaps because not much really seemed to be going on. In "The Star-Spangled Banner" Tomlinson stood bound and blindfolded, upstage, as a parade of dancers crossed in front of her. Of the group, though, only Sharon Booth exhibited the energy to match the rawness of Hendrix's caustic riff on the national anthem.
In the end, "Psychedelic Six Pack" might have been just a little too nice, falling just shy of the restiveness and defiance that marked the counterculture that it sought to evoke.
Anandha Ray's whimsical, multimedia "Temporal Landscapes" closed the program. Her imagery of playful nymphs and elves frolicking in the Styrofoam and cellophane detritus of modern society was a not-too-biting commentary on the capricious wastefulness of modern society. Still, it was a curious segue from a gentle indictment of the American "throwaway" mentality into the patriotic fervor of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" and post-show fireworks.
This review initially appeared on July 6, 2002 in the Contra Costa Times.
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