By Tara Mitton Catao
In the third installment of its popular modern dance series, the Duncan Theatre veered away from the companies of iconic modern dance makers and presented BodyVox.
The eight-member troupe from Portland, Ore., is the creation of the husband-and-wife team of Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland and showcases their choreography. Both share the same professional background, having worked as dancers and creators in the multimedia dance companies Momix, ISO Dance and Pilobolus.
The performance Friday night was a potpourri of past works that were woven together into a seamless evening of dance theatre, film and music that celebrated BodyVox’s 15th anniversary and was called appropriately Fifteen.
Though not as arresting and multi-faceted as the performances of its precursors, Momix and Pilobolus, the BodyVox performance was entertaining and left one with a pleasant feel. It was just plain fun with its easy listening, easy dancing and easy explorations into live video and edited film. It was the kind of dancing that one almost felt that you could get up and join them onstage.
But it was the films and less dancey and delightfully quirky works that really engaged. Notable exceptions were the solo Reservations, wonderfully danced by the newest member of the company, the young and talented Brent Luebbert, and a haunting ensemble work that touched on the sinking of the Titantic.
The films, choreographically edited to music and projected on a large backdrop, were directed by frequent collaborator Mitchell Rose, a filmmaker whose former career as a choreographer with a flair for comedy is clearly evident in Unleashed. The black-and-white film showed Hampton exercising at a gym and checking out the very focused and therefore totally uninterested Roland. As he followed her from one exercise machine to another, his imagination was “unleashed” and we saw them together in one vintage, Great Gatsby-like scene after another.
As they danced on screen to the notes of Johannes Brahms’ waltzes, images of double arabesques on a bicycle built for two and reaching port de bras as row boats passed on a lake poked fun at our most sentimental romantic notions. Reality clicked in at the end when Hampton’s fantasies faded and he saw that his heart’s desire had meanwhile gotten up and left the gym.
The film sections worked well in the program not only to give the dancers a chance to change costumes and take a breath, but also to give the audience a rest from the live performance while still maintaining a sense of continuity with the change in medium.
Advance, another film selection set to the ebullient percussion score of William Goodrum, made you want to lace up your shoelaces and join Hampton and Roland as they danced the same choreographic phrases over and over in a variety of different places. Filmed from behind, we saw just the backsides of the two as they danced side by side, always in unison step — on some kind of exciting, always-traveling-forward journey through country and city scenes, in winter and summer, and in light and in darkness.
BodyVox’s distinct quality of theatrical humor came out in the delightfully zany and quirky dances Urban Meadow and The Usual Suspects.
Whimsically costumed by Roland in vintage grandmother overcoats, knitted caps with ears and horns, and adorable socks with little white cotton balls sewn on them, Urban Meadow seemed to be a simple tale of a herd of straying sheep. Oblivious to a slinky urban villain (aka, the Wolf) who was stalking his prey, a fur-clad and bored shepherd continuously returned the strays to the fold. With minimal movement but a great deal of herd bourrée-ing and stray baaah-ing, Urban Meadow highlighted, in a most amusing way with its off-the-wall humor, how we humans are quite similar to sheep in our trait to stick together.
Light social commentary continued in The Usual Suspects. Wearing brightly colored underwear trunks over their dance clothes, a group of four dancers continually angled for position in the group, inevitably shouldering or squeezing one of them out. We all relate to the feeling of wanting to belong and be part of a particular group.
In the ensemble work S.O.S., there was a simplicity in approach to the “unthinkable” repercussion of the “unsinkable” disaster of the Titanic; to the surreal moment of the inevitability of giving in and the going down — sinking into the depths of the ocean. Roland’s clever costumes were spot on with the four men in black overcoats covering long underwear and the women still elegant in evening wear as if the disaster struck just as they returned to their cabins.
The daintily crossed ankles of the ladies and the lumbering moves of the heavy-coated men captured that moment of limbo before all sank slowly into the deep water. The purity of the imagery was effective especially as they huddled together facing each other, arms interlaced, and lifted their legs out through the sides of their cluster hinting of a lonely lifeboat hopelessly rowing its oars to nowhere.
One can only imagine what fun the rehearsal process of this dance think tank must be. With an emphasis on innovation and collaboration, new projects must be more about the process than the performance element. The dancers ranged in age to just out of college to well-seasoned and mature and though — in performance — this has some drawbacks, in the studio — during the creation mode — this seemed to be a good dynamic for a true creative family.
BodyVox is the kind of company whose seasons you would always want to attend, so that you could see what they have been up to in the studios, and enjoy the fun and creativity of their newest creative endeavors.