There are several acts involving backup dancers that are signaled by costume and set changes. The dance and scene changes are somewhat irrelevant, in this reviewer’s opinion, as the evening performance feels entirely of one piece. The tale of Oedipus with Factor as Jacosta who does the ick with her son, is told with the help of two backup dancers who join Factor in vogue-like poses with acanthus like foliage. It’s like a Grecian urn comes to life bursting out with camp. A neon V gives the minimalist backdrop that Factor needs to again go full angling Martha. A larger group of backup dancers seem to emerge from the audience air, dancing on to the stage and making one heckuva Madonna Meets Martha or Martha Meets Madonna party.
For many of us in the crowd— the Martha Graham words that Factor selected to lip sync were cherrypicked with outstanding sensitivity. From his selections, we begin to ponder that perhaps Graham was a if not the mother of modern dance because she communicated her intoxication with movement and in this performance especially, her oft-repeated mantra of sorts that dancing is a puppet flying against the sky and that she is that puppet—…the puppet is myself and it is flying across the sky…
And, Madonna devotees or fellow fans of Wikipedia, will know that this isn’t the Queen of Pop’s first collaboration with American Dance Festival (ADF). Back in the day— her pre-diva days— when she longed to be a dancer, she logged a summer learning how to dance with the ADF. We learn in Wikipedia that her singing and acting career was just an accidental detour from her professional dancer path that took root and then took her flying to stardom.
