Japanese choreographer Ruri Mito made her North American debut at PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance in Chatham, NY, in early January. As part of Japan Society’s annual Japan + East Asia programming for the APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals) industry conference in NYC that recently concluded, PS21 is an astute partner.
At both Japan Society and PS21, Mito performed her solo, Matou, translated as “to wear, to tangle or when your life flashes before your eyes” on a 12x12 raised black-colored platform in a blackened space that set the work apart in its own intensely focused world. This remarkable genderless performer, clad in a skin colored, open-backed sheath, stayed close to the platform floor. Like a contortionist, she turned herself inside out, her upside-down head rotating in a full circle, eyes cast within. Amoeba-like, she morphed from skittering spiderlike fingers to the fluid wings of a swan to hands pushed through her legs like blossoms. She burrowed into herself, revealing a protruding spine and scapulas. She extended seemingly beyond her skin while folding and unfolding her limbs. The low rumbling and shaking of a prolonged sound accompanied.
At Japan Society, four young Korean men of choreographer Daeho Lee and dancer Junghwi Park’s C. SENSE dance company exhibited robust prowess in Trivial Perfection by lifting, tossing, and pushing off one another. The men’s solos where quick and varied. They moved into and out of the floor while boxing the air and rolling. Dressed casually in shorts and shirts this bro-fun work featured body percussion (smacking and rubbing their thighs and chests and cumulative hands slapping one atop the other), as well as vocal exclamations. A long-haired musician located in a downstage corner played both electronic sounds from a computer and refreshingly, electric guitar. Humorous and satisfying for its sheer exuberance, Trivial Perfection would benefit from editing for length and rhythmic variety.
Also, performed at Japan Society, was choreographer I-Ling Liu’s ...and, or...a duet in silence from Taiwan. A tall woman and shorter man in stylized green and red costumes, each with one arm bare, slowly reach for the other in an upstage spotlight. She rises on relevé (on her toes) as he takes her hand and gently promenades her in a circle. Suddenly, they drop into an attenuated lunge. An accumulated movement phrase (movements are added each time the phrase returns) is punctuated by his hand pounding his back. He grabs her bottom, and she mimes hitting him. Thus, the theme of ...and, or... begins, decisions made by a couple living their lives as most couples do, both genially and in conflict but here, notably equally. A series of high-flying catches (too close to the edge of the stage for this audience member’s comfort) included a running leap onto her shoulders. She carries him, no shrinking violet this partner.
The highlight was Mito’s Where we were born, performed at PS21, with a shortened version presented at Japan Society. The eight women, eyes often closed and costumed in muted earth-colored splattered tops and pants, heap, undulate, and create images of natural forms such as slithering creatures, mountain goats and fungi. The dancers huddle tightly then reach so far that they slowly tumble over one another to create a new connected shape. A dancer climbs to the top of a platform of cooperating bodies in a heroic arrested shape, a repeated theme. To a gurgling one-note tone and the recorded distant sound of thunder, leadership of the performers evolves as the group journeys through collapse, rise and spiral, and the pull of guiding hands. Propelled turns and arms tossed quickly upward pepper the inexorable forward movement like the deliberate drumbeat of passing time.
Catherine Tharin danced with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company touring nationally and internationally. She teaches dance studies and technique, is an independent dance and performance curator, choreographs, writes about dance for Side of Culture and Interlocutor, and is a reviewer for The Dance Enthusiast. She also writes for The Boston Globe. Catherine lives in Pine Plains, New York and New York City.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.