ODC/Dance returned for the launch of its 37th season over the weekend with a couple of puzzling premieres (two of five slated for this month) splendidly, even ecstatically performed. So, what else is new? Several years ago, the Bay Area’s longest-running modern dance company went uptown, which, in San Francisco’s skewed geography, translates as going downtown, in this instance to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, a venue to which the audiences have followed with much relish.
The company, which means artistic director Brenda Way, co-artistic director KT Nelson and associate choreographer Kimi Okada, is surely the most productive and most tireless crew around, and sometimes, they insist on proving it. The program Saturday (March 14) ran an overlong two-and-a-quarter hours with a single brief intermission. The order of dances was reshuffled, with the two new works filling the second half and revivals occupying the first part. If a choreographer hopes that the spectator will come to a premiere fresh and receptive (and I believe ODC’s do hope that), this seems to me the wrong way to go about it. Dance should not be about delayed gratification.
With ODC, the problem is compounded because the dancing is often so relentlessly spectacular that it can sometimes weary you just by watching it over an extended period. The company looks pretty much the same this year as it did in 2007. Since then, Justin Flores has retired. His successor, Jeremy Smith, a former member of the David Parsons Dance Company, impresses as wiry, agile technician, who has rapidly made himself part of a team.
It is that sense of cohesion (they use to call it "esprit de corps") that distinguishes ODC from other local dance companies. These folks can anticipate their colleagues’ moves, and can (and probably do) cover for one another if disaster strikes. That said, the women in the current company possess a uniformity of height and body type, which is not always ideal for group works. What they do boast, however, are distinctive personalities that confer a special touch on the material they undertake.
You remember the three women—Elizabeth Farotte, Andrea Flores and Anne Zivolich—appearing in Way’s new Unintended Consequences: A Meditation. Farotte’s slouchy, shoulder-wriggling solo, Flores’ more intense attack and Zivolich’s Raggedy Ann number deliver a measure of thrills, but I don’t have a clue what this work is about. Since it was co-commissioned by the Equal Justice Society, one presumes there’s a burning issue involved. The harsh lighting of Alexander V. Nichols fluorescent bars suggests a prison, and there is evidence of social concern in the three recorded Laurie Anderson numbers, which include her classic "O Superman."
Otherwise, it’s anybody guess. Do the women’s shrugged shoulders indicate indifference? Do the men’s entrances and exits, walks in straight lines, suggest chain gangs or rigid adherence to towing a line? What mean the men’s wrestling encounters? Why does Zivolich extend her palms repeatedly? Way has not clarified her thematic structure to the point at which the work might cohere beyond the phrase level. The men, in addition to Smith, included Daniel Santos, Corey Brady and Aaron Perlstein.
Mixed intentions rather than opacity dominated Nelson’s premiere of the evening, A Walk in the Woods, a full-company work. Nelson takes her inspiration from the popular pieces of the Argentine Jewish composer Osvaldo Golijov, a brilliant artist whose output crosses cultures in an up-front kinetic style. The choreographer at the start seizes upon the klezmer flavor of the clarinet writing to deploy the mixed ebullience and solemnity of the Orthodox Jewish wedding. At the beginning, a complement of dancers, all spiffed out in Cassandra Carpenter’s party clothes, sweeps across the stage, arms stretched to the side. Zivolich, a Jezebel figure in red, sinks to her knees.
The party yields episodes of folk dancing, of men on their haunches kicking out in traditional style. So far, so compelling. But, then, Nelson yields to isolations of limbs, weight shifting duets and to the entrance of Santos, wearing only shorts. He is escorted by two men, who, in ritual fashion, lift him high. Perhaps, he is the groom in this marriage. Perhaps, Nelson sees marriage as some manner of spiritual cleansing.
Throughout, joy and formality compete for attention. The moment when dancers pass their hands over their eyes may reflect the title of Golijov’s Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. One possible miscalculation: the baby dolls for the women; Orthodox Jewish weddings look askance at such a rampant display of flesh. One definite miscalculation: A Walk in the Woods simply dances on too long (its position at the end of the program did Nelson no favors). There’s a solid, even exceptional piece here awaiting judicious editing and kinder program placement.
The program’s two revivals offer dancing as "pure" as ODC’s choreography ever gets. Way’s Book of Hours looks even purer, now that the fussy costumes from last year’s premiere have been supplanted by simple white togs. You can actually see the movement at last. Blessedly, the elliptical gestural vocabulary reflects the disconnected syllables and phonemes of Meredith Monk’s music. The panoply of movement, from cantilevered lifts to unison rolling arms, unfurls breathlessly without conceptual roadblock. Joining Flores, Santos and Brady were Private Freeman, Yayoi Kambara and Quilet Rarang.
Nelson’s Walk Before Talk, created for Walnut Creek’s Diablo Ballet in 1998, looks far more compelling on ODC’s limbs, even if these eight dancers aren’t ballet-trained performers. There’s a trajectory, an inevitability in these shifting relationships and a fluency in the mixed jazz-classical vocabulary that sustains the work’s appeal. I enjoyed Amanda Williams’ colorful, Star Trek jerseys, but Michael Nyman’s minimalist scores have worn out their welcome. In fact, they were clichés a decade ago. Our modern choreographers need to do more heavy listening.
ODC/Dance will repeat this program March 28 at 8 p.m. and March 30 at 2 p.m. Program 2 of the 2008 repertory season opens Friday.
