Dance review (Andrea)

There were two types of dance performances at the Gala last Sunday—those that were based in a narrative and those that were not (or were less so). Throughout our discussions about dance, I've been thinking about the role that narrative plays in my understanding and appreciation of art, and whether meaning can exist without it. I’d like to use those questions to frame my review of the Gala, in which Rite of Summer and Straight Duet relied on some kind of direct narrative and Esplanade and Nascimento Novo did not.

The program notes for Rite of Summer tell us that the dance is playing with references to the ballets Rite of Spring and Giselle. Even without these notes, though, I read the dance as a narrative because of the props, costumes, and interactions between dancers. The twitching movements of the dancers and their facial expressions indicated a struggle between opposing forces. Much of the pleasure or enjoyment of watching was about puzzling out the story and the characters. The narrative in Straight Duet was much more obvious, and the pleasure in the dance came more from seeing impressive athletic feats and simultaneously seeing the parts of the story that they conveyed.

In the non-narrative dances, I noticed myself responding more physically to the performance. Through most of Esplanade and Nascimento, my enjoyment came from the physicality of the dancers as they moved and the joy that they seemed to have in their own movement. They were often smiling as they ran or jumped or spun onstage, and I felt my face become more lifted as well, raising my eyebrows and lips slightly. I kept finding that my leg muscles, especially my calves, were slightly flexed as I watched, and when the music had a strong beat, I tapped my toes in my shoes. At their best moments, these dances conveyed a kind of exuberance in movement that I somehow experienced with them. I’m not sure that I can completely remove narrative from my understanding and appreciation of dance, but the chief enjoyment I took from Esplanade and Nascimento came from a different, more obscure, source.