stephan.com
scattered thoughts

This fall marked the United States premiere of Amelia, the latest full-length work by choreographer Édouard Lock, performed by his euphoniously named company, La La La Human Steps. Employing a rapid-fire style of modern dance immersed in ballet methodology, Lock burst on the scene in 1985 with Human Sex, followed by Bread Dances, in which he first employed dancers en pointe.

The piece is set to a new score by David Lang, drawing lyrics and inspiration from five of Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground pieces. The music is realized by a quartet that shares the stage with the dancers for the duration of the performance: cello, violin, piano, and vocalist.

The work unfolds, at first, on a stage cast with isolated pools of illumination, exposing the musicians behind a scrim, capped by a diamond-shaped projection screen displaying movement performed by a virtual dancer. A single human dancer in repose is revealed, joined shortly by a second dancer, and the two begin a conflicted pas de deux. The pair launch into a stunning sequence with lightning port de bras and classical ballet movement that transitions into a more modern style with falls and floor work.

This playful recognition of ballet tradition is seen throughout the piece, often in a distorted fashion. In particular, several of the dancers returned to a particular pose repeatedly: a seated contraction in profile to the audience, raising their legs, prominently displaying their flexed feet in pointe shoes. This position reads as a defiant challenge to ballet, childishly crying out, “Look at me!”

The pools of light form a major component of the work as a whole, creating a delicate interplay between stagecraft and performance. Dancers often follow or are followed by pools of light, dancing into and out of darkness to reveal their intent.
If there is a narrative or a theme to be found in Amelia, it seems to be an exploration of human relationships, particularly those of the romantic or erotic variety. I was reminded of Hal Hartley’s film, Flirt, which explored the same relationship problems through three different couples; one gay, one lesbian, and one straight.

One segment of the dance employed a bit of role reversal; a female dancer is dressed in the simple tuxedo worn by the male dancers, while her male partner dances en pointe. A later passage painted an overly intimate scene in a couple’s life, airing their dirty laundry in public while being serenaded by a center stage violin.

An unusual pairing of two males results in brief moments of traditional ballet partnering between them, followed by movement evoking denial and rejection. While there may be other interpretations, the dance made me think of the struggle of a gay couple to deal with their own insecurities about their self-identity and the lack of cultural benchmarks to aid in resolving their power struggles.

A third section seems to tell the tale of an affair; a woman ignored and rejected by her mate, pulling his arm, extended away from her, down with her leg. She dances instead with a second man, confidently seated in a separate pool of light. The poison of their betrayal and deception spread as the woman, torn, alternates dancing with her two partners.

Lock’s notion of dance as language seems to work, although repeated viewing would be required to abstract more than the rudiments of his vocabulary. The most overt element appears to be the incredibly fast arm movements, which are often at counterpoint with the rest of a particular dancers movement. In several contexts, it seemed that those arm movement represented spoken language, the limited and clumsy utterances that comprise most of human interaction. The use of traditional ballet movement appeared to signify cultural roles, standards, and expectations.

My only significant criticism of the piece was the use of a virtual performer for the projected video segments. There appeared to be no specific reason or advantage to this choice, leaving it as a bit of technology for the sake of technology, where a video of a human dancer would have sufficed.

As a whole, however, Amelia was energizing and inspirational, breaking new ground and pointing the way to further exploration of movement. Oh, yes, and it proved once and for all that a man can dance en pointe without drawing laughter.