Bottles of colored water in perfectly straight rows line the Zilkha Gallery’s main viewing room as far as the eye can see. Four dancers dressed in formal slacks, white button down shirts, and ties dance in between the bottles, kicking and moving them to the back corner of the room, until the straight rows are destroyed and the dancers have moved to the back of the enormous gallery. In the background hangs the artwork of Ellen K. Levy’s newest exhibit, “evolution.” The artwork depicts images and text dealing with patent grants and uses bright vibrant colors and strong block forms. The dancers’ clothes make the background pieces’ colors pop as they take off their white shirts and slacks to reveal bright yellow, green and blue tank tops and pants.
This was just one of the many pieces in last Friday’s dance performance that culminated the fall semester class “Repertory and Performance,” which was taught by members of New York-based Liz Lehrman Dance Exchange.
While one piece was happening, two or three other groups of performers were dancing and interacting in other parts of the room, pulling the audience’s attention in different directions. The audience freely roamed through the space and seemed to enjoy being able to decide which performance they wanted to be viewing and when they wanted to see something different. A member of Lehrman’s dance group walked around with a microphone, alerting watchers that performances were happening everywhere, encouraging them to move around and challenging them to see something new, different, perhaps even uncomfortable. Many times the performers would wander through the audience to get to their next dancing space, and sometimes had to physically move audience members.
“I think one of the most interesting aspects of this performance was that the audience was unable to see or be aware of all the things occurring at the same time,” said Stephanie Fungsang ’08, who was in various dances throughout the evening. “But at the same time, the experience for us as performers was also very unique, knowing that someone in the audience might see my face only once throughout the entire evening, or that I might have to alter paths to avoid running into an audience member.”
The piece was site-specific and created in a six-day intensive before classes started this semester. The ten dancers came back to school early and practiced for ten hours a day to create the final piece, pulling ideas and moves from their previous semester’s work.
As audience members wandered, noises could be heard from various other performances, adding another layer to an already complex and beautiful visual and oratory image. Justin Francis ’06 broke into song at one point, forcing the audience to shift, which they did with some reluctance at first as a large group, later breaking into smaller groups viewing different performances.
Jane Kaufman ’08 and Kelly Klein ’08 performed one piece in the corner of the gallery that incorporated syncopated movements along with spoken word. Such phrases as “you can pack my food but you can’t pack my hunger” were repeated and said as the two touched, moved, and explored the space and each other.
Audience members overflowed into the main gallery during the dancer’s initial instructions and filled the entirety of the gallery throughout the performance.
“My favorite moment was the first moment that I walked in, when I still didn’t know that to expect, and I saw a girl, upside down, leaning and moving against a wall,” said Emily House ’09. “That defied so much what I consider to be ‘normal’ that I was momentarily confused. I thought, ‘Wait. What is this? Is this a dancer? No, it can’t be a dancer, because a dancer would be performing on a stage-like setting, and not in some corner. So… is it just some Wesleyan student stretching? No, it can’t be- that’s too strange, even for a student at Wes… right?’ That moment epitomizes exactly what I loved about that performance- the unique ambiguity of artist and audience.”
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