Slumped on the stage, with her limbs indistinguishably bent and wrapped, Cathy Weis inched along awkwardly, demonstrating all the movement of walking that we miss out on every day.
“On Fourteenth Street, people aren’t going down the road like this,” Weis said. “They have their own way of walking. They walk.”
After Weis’s example of one possible alternative, walking normally seemed banal. Efficiency and sense – who needs them? Not the Cathy Weis Project. Her “Electric Haiku: Calm as Custard” is a triumph of innovative multimedia and dance that combines carnival-like surrealism with insight into our own mysterious frailty. Weis’s work embodied the spirit of Wesleyan’s Breaking Ground Dance Series in its imagination; to watch Weis and her accompanying dancers is to be enveloped in their endearingly freakish existence.
The spell was cast with the opening duet “A Bad Spot Hurts Like Mad.”
“Helen has left me and gone back to the 1930s,” said dancer Jennie Liu.
Elizabeth Ward, presumed to be the beloved Helen, countered Liu’s energies subtly. At times, their bodies were conjoined in motion while at others they were warring. Ward even used a fan with the image of what appeared to be the grinning mascot of the Bob’s Big Boy franchise to smack the other dancer. It is jarring to watch her wallop Liu and hear the loud “thwack!” with each encounter, but Liu’s deft jumps and defenses are accompanied by smirks. Whatever gravitas was established with the loss of Helen is balanced by playful interaction and movement.
It wasn’t all fun and games, however. Behind the women was a screen onto which their images were projected through a video camera located only feet away. On a wheeled cart, the camera’s perspective allowed the entire audience to view the dance from an otherwise impossible perspective. When Liu and Ward leaned into its lens, their faces magnified beautifully onto the big screen. Even within the intimate space of the ’92 Theater, Weis’s manipulation of the video feed offered stellar views. When the camera wasn’t focused on Liu or Ward to capture particular moments in which they tumbled together or individually on the floor, however, those stuck in the far rows had to strain to observe the grace and agility.
“A Bad Spot Hurts Like Mad” stands on its own, but it also complemented Weis’s kinesthetic “haikus” and set the stage for a whimsical evening. The tone was fluid; even the intermission was a performance of sorts. An old 1930s pop tune provided a vaudeville ambiance as dancers and stage crew disassembled the tarp façade of a carnival funhouse and readied the stage for “Electric Haiku”. In these moments Weis first moved to center stage, talking to the audience with familiarity and ease. At first, it wasn’t clear who the woman was or if the intermission was over. The ambiguity was probably intentional. as the dance pieces segue naturally while the performers use every spare moment to keep the audience’s belief suspended.
Weis’s unconventional alternative to walking was part of the first haiku, “Saunter”. It served as an introduction to rest of the haikus while also providing musings from the master choreographer. While simultaneously bending and posing her limbs, Weis told the audience where she believes movement is rooted.
“I…find it a bit lower…when the weight of my leg falls into mother earth, that connection allows me to move,” Weis said, with light falling on her and the stage in deep primary hues.
Weis’s solo, though mellow, revealed the motivation behind the night’s pieces. Her humor translates well into physicality, while her creativity is reflected in the pioneering approach to fusing dance and technology.
In a later haiku, dancers Jennifer Miller and Elizabeth Ward were responsible for a softly radiant wheelbarrow covered with a gauzy material. Towards the end of the duet, the contents of the wheelbarrow were revealed: a small TV, playing a taped video of Weis. Over speakers the TV head’s voice was heard talking.
“Can you…can you lift me up just a bit? Would you mind?” the voice requested.
Somehow, the TV began an ascent into the audience. Weis appeared on stage, angry with “the mess” the TV head was making.
“Who let that head in here? This is one head that’s gonna roll!” Weis shouted into the audience.
However, as far as theatrics are concerned, the last haiku was hands down the most ludicrously entertaining. For this piece, the entire cast situated themselves front and center for a sing-a-long of sorts. Dressed in garb that stuck mostly to a Western theme, the performers sang “The Streets of Laredo.” Even the TV head was back, no longer “the mess,” it sat as a dummy’s head in the lap of Weis, the ventriloquist. The cast performance of Johnny Cash’s famous tune was charming and clearly the last piece of the show. However, even after applause, the performers stayed in place, less stoic than simply detached from the performance. A few audience members clapped further, but Weis simply nodded politely. Sound effects of a plane brought their eyes upward, but overall they appeared to be waiting.
“A lot of Weis’s work is challenging, but this in particular was challenging,” said Stephanie Fungsang ’08. “It forces you to change what you want from a performance when you buy a ticket to a venue and have certain expectations.”
Leave a Reply