Anxiety Springs Eternal

As we tucked into our seats at Meany Hall for last night's performance of the Shen Wei Dance Arts company, we noticed that the the floor was painted in a random array of fuzzy geometric shapes (initially we thought it was sand, the first of our Butoh flashbacks), and there were no wings installed. With the house lights still on, one by one the grey-and-black-clad dancers walked quietly out to the edge of the stage, and then slowly began shuffling onto the stage, standing solemnly once they reached their respective resting points. The house lights still hadn't gone down.

One of the dancers kept shifting his spot ever so slightly, one step, two steps. Pause. One step, two steps, pause. The audience coughed, shifted with him. Hello, house lights, can't you see we're here, ready to go? We whisper to our husband that this seems strange, more something we'd expect at On the Boards. "I don't like it" he jokes, mostly. Our discomfort builds. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, played by one man using two pianos (the score was recorded, not played live) starts. The lights are still on.

The dancers all start shifting, making slow, nuanced movements. They look so beautiful, how could they tolerate moving so little? What are their rehearsals like, how can they stand this? Oh no, this isn't going to be two hours of more Butoh-styled tension without release is it? Perhaps we're too old, we've been away from dance too long. Perhaps we don't get it anymore. Will this not end? Please make it stop. House lights finally fade, but not to full darkness. Fluid arms pierce the still air, and graceful legs make delicious swishing noises as the dancers burst into full, dynamic motion. How do their bodies do that? They contort and roll and fly as though made out of warm taffy. They move in ways we've never seen before, much less imagined. Oh my, that's beautiful. Please don't stop, we could watch this forever.

Wei's Rite of Spring ignores the traditional thematic thread of Stravinsky's classic (the dance before a young girl is offered up in sacrifice to the God of Spring to gain his benevolence to her elders), and focuses solely on the "melodic and rhythmic qualities of the music...which inform the choice of movement vocabulary." Classic, graceful sweeps of arm and leg are juxtaposed with precise explorations of joint range and flexibility. We were entranced by Wei's obvious limitless exploration of even a small choreographic phrase, and despite his disavowal of thematic intentions, we could not deny the internal monologue during this performance that spring carries a different meaning as we age. The occasional tics of the dancers served as reminder that renewal and surprise eventually are replaced by reminder, of that which has passed, and how what is to come feels more familiar, more predictable than it did when we were young. Rites ends suddenly, as the dancers swoop inwards into a large circle, arc back out to face the audience, and gasp audibly with their faces upturned as the last piano note strikes and the lights go out.