Molissa Fenley & Dancers present: Water Courses and Mixed Repertory
May 4, 2003
By
ALLAN ULRICH
allan@voiceofdance.com
Molissa Fenley and Paz Tanjuaquio in 331 Steps. Photo by Paula Court.
Back in the 1980s, Molissa Fenley symbolized the almost visceral excitement that could occasionally penetrate the dreary shell of conceptualism, the carapace that postmodernism understandably liked to put on for protection against a hostile world. Although based in New York, she appeared often in the Bay Area because her roots were at small Mills College in Oakland, where she periodically returned for master classes and testing of new material. With six women in tow, Fenley, now an eternally youthful 49, came back over the weekend for what she called an evening of contemporary dance at the ODC Theater in San Francisco.
Actually, the performance Friday (May 3) was a catch-up affair after an absence of several years. A premiere, Water Courses, is a dance that Fenley plans to try out at New York's Lincoln Center this summer. Two other dances, Delta (2000) and 331 Steps (2002), had not been given previously in the Bay Area. One revival, Hemispheres (Part IV), recalled Fenley's first visit to ODC in 1983. In the first half Friday, in order to give Fenley a break, an excerpt by a Mills graduate was included, a number that looked very much like a dissertation subject that you wouldn't see outside of college dance departments these days. It was a boring little essay with suggestions of looking over the shoulder paranoia, but I am glad it was there. Fenley, unlike this hapless soloist, never reeked of the academy. Indeed, the Mills experience was probably what she needed to curb her almost incredible energy and lend it a kind of pedigree.
And, yes, Fenley continues to amaze. The short cropped coiffure is still there and so is the legendary stamina that a decade ago propelled her through a topless dance set to the complete StravinskyRite of Spring . What remains, too, is Fenley's genius for inhabiting a phrase, for seeing it through to the last moment; she holds an arm out, with a palm flat in the air and you know she believes it in every sinew. In Delta, which is a duet with Paz Tanjuaquio set to pianist Maro Ajemian's classic recording of John Cage'sSonatas and Interludes, the tension between the dancers never materializes because Tanjuaquio, a good performer, just can't deliver and shape the way Fenley can.
She is into group work these days, what the program handout calls a third phase of her career, and some promise was evident in Water Courses, which also recruited Dena Bermann, Nora Chipaumire, Alexis Mian and Alyssa Wilmot, contracting and expanding in eddies of movement to a taped vocal score by Joy Harjo. Fenley tries a bit of everything here - discontinuity, unisons, patterning - but the group dynamic eludes her. What looks remarkable on Fenley's trim frame simply doesn't translate to the bodies of others. 331 Steps is a trio inspired by the 331 steps and instructions that comprise the chanoyu, Japanese tea ceremony. You could not discern any of this from seeing the dance, a kind of postmodern number. The three dancers (Fenley, Mian, Tanjuaquio), all in bright contrasting colors, are each tethered to the wall by a long sash; at some point, those sashes are tangled - rather bald symbolism for a kind of sisterhood ethos that has been, happily, missing from Fenley's work till now.
Middle age, alas, has, apparently, tamed Fenley a bit. She never toured here with Peter Boal, the New York City Ballet principal with whom she collaborated in the East, and I have missed the tension that comes only from intersexual exchanges. However, it was revealing to see again a snippet from Hemispheres, with Anthony Davis' churning score. This was the Fenley that alarmed and delighted us a generation ago, a gamine from an alternate universe endowed with a fierce attack that set her apart from all those weary conceptualists.
Back then, you went to a Fenley concert, expecting explosions emanating from some volcanic core; you knew it wasn't improvised, but Fenley somehow made you believe in the spontaneity of the gesture.; you half expected her to jump in your lap. However, it appears that she has gone respectable. She now demonstrates. To be sure, she demonstrates well, but where is the passion of yesteryear?
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