DANCE REVIEW: Armitage Gone! Dance at Jacob's Pillow

Submitted by Seth Rogovoy on July 15, 2010 - 12:43pm

Dance

JACOB’S PILLOW
Ted Shawn Theatre

Armitage Gone! Dance
July 14-18, 2010

Review by Seth Rogovoy

Abbey Roesner and Luke Manley of Armitage Gone! Dance; photo Kristi Pitsch

(BECKET, Mass., July 14, 2010) – Choreographer Karole Armitage’s newest full-length dance, Three Theories, is ostensibly a reflection of Brian Greene’s best-selling book on theoretical physics, The Elegant Universe.

Not exactly the stuff of your dance dreams? My thoughts, exactly. Which is why I suggest you do what I did – sit back and enjoy the display of virtuosic dancers, choreography, lighting, and music, because science has never been this sexy.

Physics isn’t exactly alien to dance—far be it from me to explain, but if I’m not wrong, gravity has something to do with physics, as do the laws of motion and, I think, the rules of muscular engagement---tension and release—that are the basic tools of dance.

But again, you don’t really need to think about any of this to follow or enjoy Three Theories. Sure, it helps that Armitage has conveniently divided the piece into four neat segments that even the most physics-phobic can grasp: Bang—a kind of prelude introducing the basic vocabulary in the form of Creation (a flash of light, the dawn of Man); Relativity—that was Einstein, we know, and it explains why, well, I don’t know what it explains, but I do recall something about light and mass and curved space, and dance deals with all that; Quantum—I think that’s particle physics, but I was a history major; and String—referring to string theory, which of course as we all know has to do with a universe constructed out of vibrations in its ultimate form. I think.

So maybe you’ll related what you see to some or all of this, or maybe you won’t. But in either case, what you will see are eleven dancers that, while incredibly diverse in size, shape, and color, are all united in strength, athleticism, and suppleness. No delicacy for Armitage—and least not here. These dancers, men and women alike, are human inclined planes, levers, catapults, gravity-defying machines.

They tend to move quickly and solidly, but shimmy and extend in undulations that defy their skeletal systems (as if they’re made only of muscle, which indeed some of them appear to be). Bodies tip to the side and long legs go up and vertical; arms extend impossibly outward from shoulders and move so fast a dancer (Abby Roesner in this case) looked like one of those multi-armed Hindu goddesses.

Armitage and lighting deisnger Clifton Taylor made extensive use of blackouts, backlighting that emphasized silhouettes and reflections off dancers shoulders and hair, and handheld spots, and Rhys Chatham’s original compisitions for the piece—especially his pounding guitar-bass-drums score for Quantum—were spectacular. While the dance mostly worked as an ensemble piece, there were solos and duets, and a few dancers did stand out, including the aforementioned Roesner, the crowd favorite Kristina Bethel-Blunt, Sean Hilton and Marlon Taylor-Wiles.

But they were all terrific in a brutally demanding, non-stop hour-long dance that required turning on dimes, tossing each other around, folding up into a small ball and then unrolling oneself (a nearly magical trick by the Amazonian Bethel-Blunt), and even offering a few hints of Armitage’s more commercial work in the pop realm.

I have a number of theories about Three Theories, but they’re all relative and hanging by a thin string.

Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living’s award-winning editor-in-chief and cultural critic.

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