As we enter the performance hall it seems only a few of us are hearing the periodic muted foghorn-like sounds in the hall. They are accompanied by the stark visual of the empty stage with oversized white curtains softly billowed by breezes sweeping the stage.
This soundscape does gain clarity eventually in the silent hall. Two technicians walk down the long steps leading to the stage, one on each side. From the vantage point of Row O, it’s never clear what they are doing. Eventually they each take up handheld devices that we learn in the post-show talk are warming lights that they shine on the dancers. This reviewer mistakenly thought their presence had something to do with the ever shifting soundscape— electronic, sometimes raging , sometimes mellowing, rarely in close sync with the dancers, other than during the penultimate group DTs shake.
American Dance Festival Hosts Dance About Drug Overdose Turned PTSD
For ninety minutes, the five dancers of the daela troupe live a story of addiction and overdose— or at least that was how Bartosik described the work to the organizations that commissioned it.
The stage is dark, always. At first and very briefly the dancers streak, pirouette, jete and more across its expanse. That dance to define the space is relatively short lived. For much of the dance they are group huddled, or lying prostrate, prone, or coupled when not in what feels a polyamorous grope. Even from a Row O perspective, we can imagine the dancers as grimy and dirty. We cannot see the facial details that one sees in these photos, nor do we experience a narrative in the way one does in even the largest opera hall when trained actors’ body language reaches us from afar.
THE dynamic in the hall comes not from the movement but more from the ever changing soundscape. We hear a crescendo of sirens at one point. We hear heartbeats. Mainly we hear various shades of discordant cacophony.
Bartosik, in the post-show discussion, clarified that bLUr is more about how bodies carry trauma in general, and how this becomes shared trauma. A one-time member of Merce Cunningham Dance, Bartosik explains that when she “sees something that looks like dance in the piece she knows that it is wrong…” and not what she is looking for. Rather, she “.. wants bLUr to become a “community of bodies” exploding with feeling.”
In this writer’s view— a frequent reviewer of dance and theater both— any “explosion of feeling” didn’t register very high on the emotional Richter scale. Expect a performance more cerebral than visceral, and one not too concerned with communicating to us, the audience.
That said, in the post-show talk there is clearly a strong fan base for this work, which some described with words like “raw”. Watch this NY Live Arts interview of Bartosik by Bill T. Jones for more insight into how Bartosik views her work.
For tickets and more information visit the American Dance Festival website.
Photos: Maria Baranova
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About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
