Reviews
CrossCurrents Loads Its Table With New Works
If Saturday night’s performance at Dance Place by CrossCurrents Dance Company had been a meal, it would have received an overall rating of “satisfactory.” The evening featured predominantly new works by five choreographers, including the company’s artistic directors, Helen Hayes and Debra Kanter.
The opening appetizer was “light years,” a delightful childlike romp choreographed by Emily Crews and set to the folksy jazz of David Grisman. Four women clapped, slapped, jumped and hopped mischievously across the stage, evoking children’s games.
Equally satisfying was the soft, flowing, improvisation-based work “Seen From Afar,” by Daniel Burkholder. Evoking the movements of birds, dancers came together and dispersed with the fluidity of a migrating flock, dynamically inhabiting the stage in their long orange tunics. The electronic music of Steve Reich created an otherworldly atmosphere, transforming the stage into an avian realm.
The main course, longish pieces “Code Blue” and “Fragments” by Debra Kanter, were somewhat monotonous. Tense emotional movements with overwrought, grasping hand gestures characterized both works. The timing of still poses with erratic movements and sweeping floor work became predictable. Though the dancers were accomplished, the choreography wandered and was in need of tension relief.
Helen Hayes’s “Heat of the Jungle” and Alvin Mayes’s “From Morn Till Eve,” both lenses into relationships between the sexes, were the dessert: Hayes’s work was sharply tart while Mayes’s was saccharine sweet. The latter strung together dramatic, even cliched, romantic poses beautifully danced by Hayes and Donnie Walker. The piece had a sad aftertaste, however, as the couple’s attitude toward each other was one of indifference and ennui. Quite the opposite was true in Hayes’s cutthroat “jungle” world where four women pursued one man in funny ensemble moments, ending in the capture of their prey.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company