The Gem Theater, Kansas City, MO.
August 10, 2024 (viewed virtually).
Spinning top turns, leaps in full flight, impossibly fast and complex gestures…that might be what some people expect from professional concert dance. Works like Kansas City, MO-based Tristian Griffin Dance Company’s bold and thoughtful The Unexpected Performance, directed and choreographed by Artistic Director Tristian Griffin, demonstrate how contemporary dance can encompass so much more. Dr. Webster Donald served as Dramaturg.
Evocative theatricality could inspire discomfort, sadness, even anger…simply by putting a mirror to hateful intolerance and the harm it catalyzes. Highly athletic choreography wouldn’t have accomplished that in the same way. That’s not to say that the work didn’t feature intricate, technical movement in a contemporary dance idiom…it did indeed, and commendably so. Yet that was only one color in the larger multi-sensory painting before us.
That approach is in no way unprecedented in contemporary dance. Yet in this post-postmodern age, when a wholesale rejection of technical virtuosity can seem…passé, perhaps this kind of performance is “unexpected.” Whether or not, I didn’t quite expect it. I was left provoked in mind and stirred in soul. It’s said that what we really remember is how we’re left feeling…and in that respect, this work will remain quite memorable indeed.
It began somewhat enigmatically: a man (Josue Villeda) typed away on a typewriter, settled in a domestic space, while voiceover described a science experiment involving cats in boxes (emcee/Voiceover Justice Horn). I recognized the reference to the famous paradox Schrodinger’s Cat (the idea that something can be in two opposing states until observed). Lights dimmed further (lighting design by Zan de Spelder).
Another voiceover echoed through the space, and the spotlight shifted to a second performer (Claude Alexander III). He seemed to flip channels until he found something that caught his attention. Then he began to move: geometric, accented, staccato. Villeda danced soon, as well – with a similarly tenacious quality, yet not also with some level of soothing flow.
The two soon danced in unison. Honesty and heart seemed to be values here, over technical polish or perfect unison timing. Walking, gazing, observing their own hands, these movers took time to be in dialogue with kinetic experience and with the space – rather than an approach of dazzling with athletic virtuosity. I was reminded of how both modes have value….the cat in the box can be both alive and dead.
Something just short of cacophony filled the aural sphere (sound engineering by Ross Kimball) – contrasting the sparse nature of what was in physical space. I thought about loud inner narratives: our “monkey minds” that might take us in twenty different directions in a few short minutes. Part of that mild cacophony was Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.” Later on, voiceover of intolerant complaints about undocumented people echoed through the space.
With those elements, these unpolished qualities in movement and sound only felt honest…felt real. Why apply something “pretty” to the unjust, the seemingly intractable, the harmful? Power and emotional truth were the name of the game…and for me, it worked.
With alarm clock sounds and quotidian actions of dressing, the monotony of daily cycles joined this dynamic…first television, now the workday. But with shocking news updates on the television, and scores reminding us of how those events are ripples of long-standing injustices, these deeper truths and histories resounded through the mundanity. This work having an ensemble of two also enhanced the rawness of all of that; it could feel all the more open and vulnerable.
Yet, something rose about halfway through the program, something that felt more like refusing to be “held down”, as the score repeated. Alexander turned, lengthened, extended: notably grounded, but seeming to lift more along with that new rising in the air. That feeling intensified with him beginning to sing Amazing Grace, with stunning vocal clarity and power. It’s always intriguing to see dancers use their voices: an arguably, and relatively, underexplored capacity within dancers. It was also simply part of the multidisciplinary nature of the work, that which was part of it fully immersing me.
Heartbreak returned. The project of justice is long, and not without bitter losses. Another news report detailed the death of an undocumented individual. Villeda also got to use his voice; he spoke in Spanish, with fiery passion. He moved with a ferocity to match.
An altercation between these two figures filled the next scene. The tension in the atmosphere became interpersonal. A clear message of non-judgement, of listening before speaking, rang through their dance-theatrical exchange. That receptivity also shined through when they danced together again. With attuned partnering, their animosity had somehow become collaboration.
They created something other than walls of division. Embracing as lights went down, perhaps they’d even found something like agape love: caring for another human simply because they are also human. As the news report that Alexander’s persona was watching early in the program had noted, “everyone you’re looking at is also you…you could be that person.” That can be instructive as we navigate 2024’s massive societal challenges (at least in this reviewer’s humble opinion, it can be).
We can also break down walls on the level of art and artmaking – allowing fluidity and cross-pollination of genre, discipline, and approach to craft. What can result can be truly profound. Thank you to Tristian Griffin Dance Company for holding a mirror up to these important truths.
By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.
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