Art informs art. Dance influences dance. Sometimes this is more transparent than others. Choreographer Catherine Galasso developed 10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making (world premiere) with the ODC company dancers, after viewing Brenda Way’s A Brief History of Up and Down (March 2024). The crowd-pleasing Summer Sampler program, presented and performed by ODC/Dance this July at its namesake ODC Theatre, offers us an opportunity to see both works sequentially.
With A Brief History, Way excavates “the evolution of contemporary dance,” incorporating modern dance trends from the everyday to the epic, the pedestrian to the enigmatic. I wrote about the premiere describing it as “an ode to the joy of dancing,” and this reprise only reinforces that opinion. As the opening minutes unfold in silence, we observe dance developing from the mundane activity of a man tying his shoe, to individuals strolling, dashing, and twirling across the stage. As I watch, I notice my inclination to create order, pattern, and meaning, even where none might exist. Do others have this tendency? These are just the questions Way wants us to ask ourselves.
From left, Jaime Garcia Castilla, Miche Wong, Katie Lake, Jeremy Bannon-Neches and Rachel Furst in A Brief History of Up and Down by Brenda Way. Photo by Shawna Sarnowski
After the solo forays, ensembles form as a row of dancers, their backs to us, bend and stretch in reaction to each other’s prods. The clickety-clack of a typewriter’s keys sound, as Way’s own queries unspool across the backdrop, prompting us to consider if unison helps us see better. Rachel Furst standing assuredly on one leg, examining the articulating toes of her other foot, twisting it in space, is an act of “virtuosity.”
“Does music make meaning?” Who is to say, but the introduction of baroque music is welcome. As the dancers having shed their bulky outerwear, re-enter in simple dove-grey costumes, the dance becomes more sophisticated. The tender and lyrical pairing of Brandon “Private” Freeman and Colton Wall grows into a spritely trio with the addition of Furst who is lifted, carried and tossed playfully by her partners. The stage fills with dancers working in synchronicity as they stride backwards creating precise patterns.
As a male-female duet steeped in vulnerability and trust, is embodied by Miche Wong and Wall, the anonymity of a modern dance aesthetic transitions to the more emotional and personal. He carries her cradled against his upper chest. Bending his knees deeply so her curved form cantilevers over the floor, he remains her steadfast support. She swims away from him, arms churning. He responds by sweeping her body arcing through the air, allowing her to soar.
A Brief History of Up and Down by Brenda Way. Photo by Robbie Sweeny
Throughout, sequences build in intensity, speed, and complexity. A couple plays an engaging game of planked leapfrog, springing on all fours over each other’s prone bodies. With loose limbs and easy satisfied smiles, the most skilled of the group make it all look spontaneous and joyful. As partners carry each other every which way, upside down, atop shoulders, or sideways like boards, the possibilities for invention seem endless. We only want more, as Freeman catches newcomer Addison Norman mid-split-jump and carries her off, extending her leap, as the light wanes.
Can a scene-change be a dance? The choreography of the intermission set-change should get a program credit of its own. Over the course of 20-minutes, a half-dozen crew members transform the space, stripping its theatrical garb, by removing white flooring, black framing drapes and a backdrop to uncover the venue’s brick walls. White tape lines are applied to the black floor creating a stage-sized athletic court.
As 10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making begins, dancers in a rainbow of athleisureware separates mill around the edges. A large digital time-clock with red-lit display set at zero looms. Katie Lake saunters across the stage, as the display begins to count her steps, 1, 2, 3, etc. It takes a moment to realize that Miche Wong, standing next to the display, is clicking away on a hand-held counter, driving the display’s tally, in time with Lake’s steps. Others walk, run, and skip in turn, as Wong clicks and the total grows. We grasp the rules of the game slowly: only steps onto the court-area count; toe-taps, body rolls, or steps onto other surfaces, be they boxes, or frying pans, don’t count.
Just as Way explored what makes a dance, Galasso and her dance collaborators investigate what constitutes a step and how do they amass. I am reminded of the “Mother May I” schoolyard game, as the dancers offer wiggly wanders, dashing diagonal leaps, percussive paces, baby steps and giant steps.
Leaning into the fun, Colton Wall zips across the stage on a single roller-skate, in a stylish pose with one leg floating in front of himself. Jeremy Bannon-Neches wins the silly walk contest with a spastic twisty gait that one longs to mimic. Jaime Garcia Castilla and Jenna Marie move in tandem, grasping each other’s ears, their foreheads glued together. As the counter hits 500 steps, a boxing bell rings.
That was a lot of work to get only a 20th of the way to the goal of 10,000 steps. A coordinated effort is undertaken. As a line of ten forms, all purposefully cross back and forth across the court. The total, now increasing by tens, soon tops 1,000.
10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making; Photo by Robbie Sweeny
A group adopts the sleek long lines of an elegant catwalk, shoulders back, arms swinging gently, and glide nonchalantly toward the audience. We are all officially obsessed with accumulation of steps, just as many of us, myself included, fixate on our own quotidian biometric measurements.
Bright lights and canned gameshow applause demark the halfway mark, 5,000 steps. Jenna Marie, with wireless microphone, which failed intermittently opening night, conducts a monologue on the subject of how our brains control how we walk. She is accompanied by a fawning assistant, Christian Squire, carrying the script, and prompting her in a whisper as she speaks. Whether for the sound problems, the stilted content, or the confusion as to whether Squires’s presence is the solution to wordy text memorization or merely comic relief, this spoken word component still needs work.
By 7,800 steps the dance is reduced to sluggish downward dog treads upon hands and feet. Moments later, the display board is rotated out of our view, and I am bereft. How quickly this previously irrelevant datapoint has become an integral part of my enjoyment and understanding of this dance. Has my fixation distracted me from the movement? Will an easily digestible meaning always crowd out a more complex reflection?
As the tricks keep coming, computerized voice commands, blacklight, and line dancing, the moments when the ODC dancers get to show off the beauty and grace of their artform are too few. The infectious techno-pop dance party which carries us all to the finish line is a highlight of the work for me. I only wish more than one audience member was invited to join the 10,000-step celebration onstage.
Review by Jen Norris, published July 20, 2024
____________________________________
Production Credits:
A Brief History of Up and Down (2024)
Choreographed by BRENDA WAY IN COLLABORATION WITH THE DANCERS
Lighting and Projection Design ALEXANDER V. NICHOLS*
Costume Design KYO YOHENA
Music JOHANN HEINRICH SCHMELZER
Dancers FULL COMPANY
Dancers JEREMY BANNON-NECHES, BRANDON “PRIVATE” FREEMAN, RACHEL FURST, JAIME GARCIA CASTILLA, MICHE WONG, CHRISTIAN SQUIRES, RYAN ROULAND SMITH, JENNA MARIE, COLTON WALL, KATIE LAKE, and ADDISON NORMAN
10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making (world premiere)
Choreographed by CATHERINE GALASSO IN COLLABORATION WITH THE DANCERS
Original Music and Sound Design DAVE CERF
Rehearsal Director PHOENICIA PETTYJOHN
Lighting Design THOMAS BOWERSOX
Wardrobe CATHERINE GALASSO & KYO YOHENA
Video Design TAYLOR EDELLE STUART
Dancers FULL COMPANY
Dancers JEREMY BANNON-NECHES, BRANDON “PRIVATE” FREEMAN, JAIME GARCIA CASTILLA, MICHE WONG, CHRISTIAN SQUIRES, RYAN ROULAND SMITH, JENNA MARIE, COLTON WALL, KATIE LAKE, ADDISON NORMAN, and JOANNE KIM
Text Excerpted from In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration by Shane O’Mara (W. W. Norton & Company, 2020)
Additional Music Terry Riley’s Keyboard Study #2 performed by Steffen Schleiermacher (MDG Records, 2002)
Antonio Vivaldi’s Winter performed by Beatboy Ninja (Beatboy Music, 2024)
Carl Craig’s In The Trees (2007) Remixed by Dave Cerf