DANCE REVIEW: CND2 at Jacob's Pillow
Dance
Program
Gnawa by Nacho Duato
Insected by Tony Fabre
Kol Nidre by Nacho Duato
Gnawa by Nacho Duato
Insected by Tony Fabre
Kol Nidre by Nacho Duato
Review by Seth Rogovoy
(July 29, 2010) – The much-beloved choreographer and Jacob’s Pillow favorite Nacho Duato said farewell to dancegoers as the artistic director of CND2 (Compañia Nacional de Danza 2) – as presumably did the company itself, which is likely to be disbanded according to news reports – with this week’s program of three relatively new dances at the Ted Shawn Theatre.
The highlight of the evening was Insected, the only piece not choreographed by Duato but rather by the company’s co-artistic director, Tony Fabre. A remarkable piece for ten dancers, Insected pulled off the amazing feat of reassembling traditional moves into a new vocabulary that mimicked that of the insect world.
Beginning with a dancer in a handstand – man or insect? – trapped at the bottom of a well-like structure, trying to climb the slippery wall but ever-failing, the piece then became a kind of suite for bugs – cockroaches, silverfish, spiders, ants, etc. – swarming around individually, collectively, and sometimes in combination with each other.
With a contemporary soundtrack that included locust-like chirping and ominous horror-movie-style sounds, the dancers transformed themselves into many-legged creatures not by overt imitation, but rather by reorganizing classical moves in skittery fashion, also drawing upon folk and African styles, to create a whole new language of movement.
It was a triumphant display of virtuosity by CND2’s extraordinary dancers, as was the opening piece, Gnawa, first created by Duato for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, based on the ecstatic sounds and dance of Spanish-Muslim North Africa.
Unfortunately, Duato chose to close out his program – and his final dance as director of CND2 – with the miserably misguided, technically inept, politically naive, and morally offensive Kol Nidre.
A self-described “introspective spiritual work ... on how armed warfare affects youths,” the dance superficially showed how child’s play – which in itself can sometimes be violent – is affected by violence.
Choreographed to works by spiritually inclined composers John Tavener, Arvo Pärt, and John Zorn, the piece was utterly predictable – “innocent” child’s play became less innocent as gunshots and bombs were heard being fired on top of the soundtrack and dancers mimed being struck dead on a pile of sandbags – to the point of meaninglessness.
Unfortunately, Duato intended it to be meaningful, in his use of the title Kol Nidre and in his own statements about the dance, statements which curiously did not appear in any of the Jacob’s Pillow publicity surrounding the program nor in any of the local coverage of the piece.
But readily available on the Internet are explanations by Duato that the piece was based on his sympathy with the children of Gaza.
That Duato chose to base his piece on the Jewish ritual of Kol Nidre – thereby conflating Judaism with Israel (in itself an anti-Semitic equation) as well as utterly misunderstanding the relationship between Kol Nidre and, as the program notes had it, “a time to reflect and forgive” – even undermined any kind of political statement he was attempting to make by throwing Kol Nidre in the face of some imaginary enemy who was oppressing children.
How revealing, for example, that Duato didn’t choose to choreograph a dance called Sderot, dedicated to the children of that Israeli village who have been consigned to living out their childhoods in underground bomb shelters, the only refuge from the constant bombardment from Hamas terrorists over the border in Gaza.
How ironic that this very weekend, missiles are once again bombarding Israel from the west and the south.
And how wrongheaded to conflate the season of individual repentance and atonement with some sort of political agenda, and to disguise it as “Kol Nidre,” which in fact has nothing to do with any of that, but is an obscure legalistic ritual designed to protect Jews from taking oaths prohibited by their religion but insisted upon by the secular or civic authorities whose rules impinge upon their own practice (perhaps the origin of Jesus’s oft-quoted “Render unto Caesar...”).
One wonders rhetorically, would Duato choreograph a dance about 9/11 and call it Easter? Would he name a dance about the slaughter of Muslims during the Crusades Ramadan? Of course he wouldn't. That would be politically incorrect.
Worst of all, however, were the aesthetic failures of the dance. Fueled by confused, misguided politics, the choreography was amateurish and utterly lacked the stunning focus and virtuosity of Gnawa and Insected.
Duato may be one of our greatest contemporary choreographers, but he is no Picasso, and Kol Nidre is no Guernica. It’s not even Neil Young’s “Ohio.” And it was a sad choice to leave as a final legacy for his work with CND2.
Editor-in-chief Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living’s award-winning cultural critic.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Technorati
