At home
Giannandrea Poesio
First came the wall, then the Ferris wheel, and now it's time for a multi-purpose structure that, with its planes, panels, doors and windows, immediately evokes the familiar image of both the interior and exterior of one of those objects human beings usually call houses. And Casa is the title of Deborah Colker's 1999 creation presented last week at the Barbican, an hour-long dazzling dance work in which every panel, door, level, terrace, beam or pole of the structure prompts myriad choreographic and acrobatic solutions. In line with the best principles of post-modern dance, physical theatre and dance theatre — namely the three genres that inform Colker's work — everyday movements mingle with virtuoso feats in a dramatic crescendo of intensely dramatic, ironic or witty images.
The 'house' is theatrically more functional and appealing than the Ferris wheel of Rota (1997), even though it does not generate the same dramatic tension as the daunting wall in Velox (1995). The dancers climb up and down walls and panels, slide along poles and jump from one level to another with no safety net and circus-like bravura. They engage in a spectacular game where the captivating physicality of the whole goes far beyond mere virtuosity and becomes a powerful means of expression.
The work has no plot, but the various sequences can be read as visual references to both horror stories and ones with happy endings, all happening within the safety of our own homes. Each mini-story, therefore, merges more or less seamlessly into another story. The fast-paced athletic action is punctuated by a soundtrack that, according to the comments I picked up on the way out, did not meet with everybody's approval, being mainly a rather irritating collage of disco-ish stuff. But it is music that matches and underscores the action well, thus giving the dancers the necessary aural oomph to go through the seemingly never-ending acrobatics.
On the opening night, the combination of fast rhythm and action prompted a roaring standing ovation, and there is no doubt that both Colker and her dancers deserved it, for not many can sail through such a taxing performance with apparent ease and even fun. But, on more than one occasion, I found that the flashy kinetic spectacle, one of Colker's signature features, detracted considerably from what could have been some dramatically intense and splendid moments of dance-theatre.
Pedestrian solutions and ideas stemming from an affirmed post-modern choreographic tradition (and my use of the term tradition in relation to post-modernism is intentionally polemical) were found, too, in another acclaimed dance performance last week, that of the White Oak Dance Project. I wish I could share the enthusiasm and excited reactions of some of my colleagues and friends. There is no doubt that, at 54, former ballet superstar Mikhail Baryshnikov still has lots to offer, including artistic charisma, an enviably perfect body and superb artistic control of the same.
But like the other, younger and splendidly talented members of the company, he seemed completely out of place when dancing the works of controversial and great American dancemakers such as Lucinda Childs, Yvonne Rainer and Erick Hawkins. What the performance lacked, in my view, was a more detailed understanding of the stylistic features and nuances that inform and characterise the work of each choreographer. Little or no difference could be seen between Childs's Largo and Rainer's Trio A Pressured No. 3, two dances that are worlds apart, or between Hawkins's intriguing Early Floating or Childs's Chacony, a 2002 work which shows how Childs, one of the high priestesses of early post-modernism. is continuously exploring new movements. Whether such lack of chiaroscuro can be blamed on the proverbial had evening, or from a hurried approach to the choreographic creations, it is difficult to say. What is certain is that this programme has little or nothing in common with the other fully post-modern one I had the pleasure of seeing in Edinburgh in August 2001, in which stylistic accuracy and a true understanding of the different choreographic modes were the key factors.
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