Alison Chase Performance & Apogee Arts - Choreographer

Performance Review: Lucid Dreams

• Dance: Meadows Dance Ensemble Creates Fascinating Dreamscape

By Margaret Putnam - November 3, 2006 - Published in the Dallas Morning News

There's no need to worry about the future of choreographer Alison Chase. She may have left Pilobolus in a cloud of controversy - she wanted the rights to her works; the powers that be said no - but she's had her revenge. And the lucky recipient of her talent has been Southern Methodist University's Meadows Dance Ensemble.

Thursday night, it performed Lucid Dreams, a piece Ms. Chase choreographed a year ago for one couple and re-created for Meadows Dance Ensemble with six couples. A work of stunning originality, it was a coup for the university and, one hopes, the sign of a budding relationship with Ms. Chase.

But first, the other works on the program. Marius Petipa's delightful Paquita, which demands impeccable ballet technique and aplomb, may be a little more of a challenge than the dancers are ready for. For the most part, they mastered the Spanish flair of tossed-back heads and hands snapping to waists, but their footwork was tentative. Soloist Brittany Werthmann made grand fouettés look like a breeze, and the corps had a charming way of arching their backs and kicking high.

Max Stone's new work, Throw, had the disadvantage of appearing on the same program with Lucid Dreams. Otherwise, it would have merited almost as much glory. Bold, dark and earthy, it opened in near darkness with dancers in a cluster and sounds that shifted from the whoosh of air to silence. The movement became freer, the music more propulsive, and the off-balance turns more luxurious during weight shifts.

The signature Pilobolus penchant for tricky partnering showed up the moment the curtain rose in Lucid Dreams, but, this time, the work was bathed with a stunningly erotic glow. The men appeared nearly naked in flesh-colored bodysuits, and the women were flamboyant in short red dresses.

As the first couple engaged in upside-down lifts of ever-increasing complexity, images of their feet and backs flickered in a film montage projected behind them. As the dance progressed, with more dancers swooping in, the video images became more lush and evocative, capturing the heads of two dancers, the sway of another and multiple images of a face.

Film director David Norman has an eye for the sensual and the smooth, and the images were so rich and vibrant that they could - but miraculously did not - compete with the action on the stage. Instead, they offered a layer of mystery and dreaminess.

Underlying the dance was an emotional tension that surfaced in spurts. A woman wrapped her legs around a man's waist, and he tried to bat her away. Another woman leapt angrily onto a man's torso, while another stepped on a man's prone back, giving it emphatic shoves. His body pitched like a flounder.

But, more often, the connections suggested unequivocal trust, gloriously revealed as images of flying figures swooping in great arches, sometimes upside down, and as images of dancers in a large mass supported only by a wrist harness.

Eat your heart out, Pilobolus.

And, Ms. Chase, come back.

Reprinted with permission. Margaret Putnam is a Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News.