Earlier this week (on Sunday, to be specific) I attended a
dance production entitled “Sensate” performed by the Carrie Ahern Dance Company
at Baltimore Theater Project. It was designed to hearken back to the more “free-form”
performances of BTP’s early days in the 1970s and 80s, the time when audiences
sat on pieces of scaffolding that would be considered horrifically unsafe by
today’s industry/theatre safety standards (I know, I’ve seen the photos) and
the performances were a bit more off-the-wall than they are today. The whole
piece lasted three hours and was a rotation of three one-hour long dance
segments occurring simultaneously in the box-office lobby area, the theatre, a
platform built over the audience level, and upstairs near the lighting booth.
The stairs leading up to the theatre lobby and the lounge space before the wall
dividing the lobby in two was termed as “neutral space” and none of the dancers
performed here (with one notable exception). I was told that the performance
was best enjoyed as viewed from different angles, and if you sat in one seat
the whole time, you’d miss ¾ of what was going on.
I didn’t come into the performance expecting a whole lot
from what I’d heard, but this performance termed “site-specific,” although
having nothing to do with BTP or its history, kind of struck a chord with me from
the way it was presented, from the moment it started.
The start of the piece was among the most organic of any I’d
seen; I was hanging out in the neutral space talking with people and was told
that “one the dancer comes down the stairs and walks through the space, the
performance begins.” It was a casual atmosphere, about five audience members
present and double or triple that number in performers and staff members of BTP
and the dance company, and I had come early to help out and meeting the
technicians and dancers, etc. But at that moment – a just about unexpected
moment – when the dancer came down the stairs and the music started to vibrate
(it wasn’t traditional music, more of a ululation/vocalization from one of the
performers that was constantly recorded, replayed, and remixed on a tape loop)
it was immediately mesmerizing. The dancer made eye contact with everyone she
passed and beckoned us to follow her into the performance space. So we did just
that.
The theater itself was pretty dark inside, and with only
some tape lines on the floor, a few rows of seats in the audience, an island of
seating in the middle, and a small row of chairs near the backstage, it
certainly wasn’t impressive in terms of set, but it was simple in a gratifying way.
I almost felt like a part of the performance as I wandered around, looking at
what was going on around me, occasionally sitting, occasionally standing in one
spot, but usually walking around. Obviously, touching the dancers wasn’t
allowed, but a couple times the dancers got so close I basically had to move
out of the way or become involved in the dance itself. The performances in the theater
were bizarre and jarring at times, with dancers writhing either solo or in
pairs, but it again was mesmerizing as you saw the organic nature of the
movement and even of the silence. The dances looked planned but not all that
planned, but you could kind of construct your own storyline from what you saw.
Out in the box office area, some chairs were set up with a
neutral space for dancing in the middle, and speakers and lighting created an
ethereal quality of sound and shadows on the wall. Usually there was only one
dancer in the space at any given time, but it was so compelling that the
outside noise was blocked out. At one point, I sat down in one of the chairs to
watch. I had no clue how long I was sitting there, but at a few a points, the
dancer and I made eye contact, and from her movements, facial expressions, and
body positioning, it almost felt like we were engaged in an intimate
conversation without words. Perhaps mental telepathy was the order of the day.
In either way, I felt connected to the performer, like she was performing for
me and no one else and it was just the two of us in the room, although there
were probably around ten people.
After a few more rounds around the spaces (including an awkward
moment where I held a curtain open for a dancer who walked through the threshold
and just kind of stood there under the curtain as I held it open for about four
minutes, since I didn’t want to close it and risk a) hitting the dancer with
the curtain or b) causing someone else to come through the curtain from behind
and walk straight into the dancer’s back) it was 4:00 and though the
performance was only about halfway done, I decided to leave for whatever
reason. It was kind of sad that only about ten other people showed up in the
two hours I was there, in contrast to the five dancers, the vocalist, and
around three or four light/sound technicians.
It was certainly an interesting experience, if not
unconventional – hard to watch but not unenjoyable. And I want to think that it
held a lot of dramaturgical and theatrical truths.
So, in my analysis, the top things that I saw that were
important in terms of site-specific performance (and to some level, dramaturgy)
were:
1.
A planned
yet organic opening. So much about the creation of theater is about the
experience, and I applaud those who have the talent of opening the show without
it being too conventional or so planned as to be contrived (“everybody sit
down, shut up, we’re going to do a show now”)
2.
Interactivity.
Most shows don’t encourage the audience to move around during the
performance, but being giving that option was refreshing. It also ensured that
no two performances could be the same. Any audience member was aware of his/her
body placement at all times and how it could affect the proceedings, or when
moving around, becoming inherently part of the performance itself.
3.
Attention
to performance and emotion. So many dancers and performers are so talented
but look so dead inside. Granted, the otherworldly costumes of these dancers
were cross between wood-faerie and just-crawled-out-of-the-grave, but they
looked anything but dead inside in their performances. Even when their eyes
were closed or in a “hangover” look, you could tell they were experiencing
something inside their brains and were not robots.
4.
Eye
contact. The moment I described earlier with the dancer in the lobby and I
having a conversation (that presumably went like this: “Hey.” “Hi, how are you
feeling?” “I’m feeling something.” “What is that something, can you tell me? I’m
listening.” “Like we’re communicating on some level.” “But do you feel happy?
Sad?” “A little sad, but overall okay.” “Let me take your sadness and dance
over there a little. Later.”) provided an intimacy in the midst of a very
public performance. Maintaining eye contact made it a personal experience for
the viewer (me, in this case) and gave it meaning.
5.
The
ability to construct one’s own storyline. A definite plus. Yes, in
conventional theatre and most dances, the plot, setting, characters, etc. are
given to you, but it’s a fun feeling when you get to make your own storyline
out of what you see in front of you. Because you’re involved and thinking about
it rather than having it thrust or insisted upon you, it feels warm, essential, like you were meant to be
there.
A lot to think about here. I will definitely make note of
this next time I see a less-than-conventional performance and in future work.
