At Off the Cuff, the Next Step Is Anyone's Guess
Last weekend we went to see Off the Cuff, part of the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, and we've been mulling over what to say about it ever since.
Improvisational dance--here, mainly of the contact improvisation kind--can immerse you in the middle of a free-floating, flow experience, as if you're a musical phrase being traded by jazz musicians. The connection is direct and visceral. We think it works best for two or more people; during a solo, you may wonder if this isn't a dancer, but simply a crazy person talking to themselves, twirling, and thumping the floor.
There's a range of responses possible.
Two outstanding performances left us convinced the fun isn't just for dancers and dance groupies, though. "Margaret's Ghost," by Carolyn Stuart and Patrick Gracewood, is a study in the quicksilver side of contact improvisation--a duet that abstractly could be viewed as the work of a single organism. But it's also very much modern dance in its reflections on age and the body and relationship. At one point, Gracewood is cradling Stuart as if she's in a bath, slippery as an infant; she's buttery-jointed, and almost mindless in her emotive presence: playful, fearful, trusting. You love art when it makes you feel as alive as that.
"Dirt," by Scott Davis and Amii LeGendre, was a response to an earlier dance in the festival, borrowing that dance's repetition of "This is a dance about...." We were warned there was adult content; the voiceover was keyed mainly to awkward or embarrassing or unusual sexual situations, like the time "You got an erection watching a student dance but then said, 'Fuck it,' and went with it anyway." The balls-out quirkiness of the spoken word element threatened to overwhelm the understated affection and humor in the actual dancing between Davis and LeGendre. Still, there was that succession of contact moments in sequence, the eye's version of music, and it's entrancing.
If you're interested in learning more about the varieties of improvisational dance, click here. If you're experienced, and looking for new sensations, note that Scott Wells is coming to town September 12-14.
