As we enter the season of gratitude, the presence of SFDanceworks in the Bay Area is at the top of my list. Their Season 7 tryptic, running November 7-10, is so gripping and stunningly performed that after watching the opening night performance I immediately purchased tickets for the next evening.
What makes this company unique is that rather than being married to the choreography of a company founder or artistic director, they offer world-class contemporary dance from sources near and far. Seminal works, rarely if ever presented on the West Coast, are shown alongside premieres by today’s leading and emerging choreographic voices. Season 7 brings us the premieres of Sheep’s Gothic, by East Coast choreographer Rena Butler, and impact III, a dynamic body percussion trio by Los Angeles’s JA Collective, as well as the first West Coast performance of European artist Marco Goecke’s acclaimed solo Äffi, danced by the charismatic and multi-talented Butler.
The unusual seating configuration, with a single line of seats edging the large square dance floor and a majority of the audience in the steeply raked fixed seating of Z Space’s Steindler Stage, is our first clue that some extraordinary is afoot.
Emerging from an examination of the Aesop’s fable “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” Butler’s Sheep’s Gothic grabs us by the throat and voraciously holds us. Butler cleverly deploys the more than thirty-member chorus of the Young Women’s Choral Projects (YWCP) to expand her cast. Entering in darkness, their austere black figures loom behind the stage-seated patrons, setting the stage for the audience to be both the rancher and the sheep. Additional choristers circle onstage, forming the fence posts of the pen into which the dancers bunch. YWCP’s unearthly singing sets the stage for a maniacal exploration of feigned identity and animalistic natures, while Jim French’s steeply directional lighting lends mystery.
Emily Hansel is held aloft by Chris Bloom in "Sheep's Gothic" by Rena Butler. Photo by Robbie Sweeny
Talented SFDanceworks dancers, Isaac Bates-Vinueza, Sarah Chou, and Emily Hansel, are joined by stellar company additions from NYC, Chris Bloom and Gabrielle Sprauve. Each embodies their sheep-wolf identity brilliantly, crafting creatures so cleverly drawn that I feel as if I am watching wildlife, rather than dancers mimicking four-legged friends. With supple curving spines and shoulders creasing inward, their heads swoop warily, anxious to sense predators. Teeth-baring snarls warn others of their potency. We see them migrating and mating, clustering for safety and primacy. Bouncing along on the palms of their hands and the balls of their feet, they lope around their forest on all fours with a springing virtuosic ease.
Leaps, spins, and lifts are sparingly deployed and all the more powerful for their scarcity and unusual shapes. A jump moves vertically, with limbs cocked angularly, the purpose to intimidate or evade. Wearing briefs and tanks splotched in browns and verdigris patterned with irregular slashes, their black knee and elbow pads accent the joints of their muscular bodies, visually reinforcing their animal nature while also providing protection.
The movement is menacing and its proximity is thrilling. Butler’s choreography is so transporting and the performers’ visceral beastly characterizations are so rich that as Sheep’s Gothic comes to a close amid haunting choral tones, it is as if we wake from a fever dream.
After intermission, JA Collective’s co-choreographers Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry are joined by SFDanceworks’ Lani Yamanaka for their fiendishly difficult impact III. Yamanaka walks the stage, pausing in each corner to clap-on the lights until the stage is fully aglow. Playing with the percussive sounds a body can make, she claps, slaps, and pounds an audible survey of her body. As she twists to the floor and rises to repeat her phrase, we gauge the subtle differences in sound of her varied postures.
Johnson and Carberry, long-time creative partners, step in to offer a perspective on the variations available with two bodies. Tapping each other’s heads and shoulders, threading their arms through and around each other, they play an ever-more complicated and speedier version of pattycake.
Hands joined, they pause, allowing the quiet to settle as if cleansing our aural pallets before Yamanaka breaks the spell, slapping their hands away and inserting herself between them, as if leaping into the center of a rollicking body-music version of Double Dutch.
From left, Lani Yamanaka, Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry in impact III by JA Collective. Photo by Robbie Sweeny
The three develop a synchronized percussion pattern: chest, chest, thigh, clap, ankle, hip, haunch, which transitions into syncopated variations, with the stomps of stocking heels expanding the progression. A rhythm spirals gracefully between them, passing from one to another, before reversing direction, all while pivoting and balancing to the delight of all. Without missing a beat, they lie on the floor, knees bent, hips rising and falling, adding the smack of hands slapping floor to their repertoire.
The flow continues unabated, but now in silence. Hands tapping and feet kicking in near misses, their furious barrage of beats suddenly amusingly soundless. They have some fun seated side-by-side on a bench, welcoming the slap of another’s hand to thigh, or rejecting it with a nudge. Their arms cross in precise patterns folding, and unfolding seamlessly, as we marvel at the hours of practice that go into making something so intricate appear so laid-back and fun.
Saving arguably the best for last, Rena Butler’s performance of Goecke’s Äffi is mesmerizing. In sheer tank top, Butler’s tremulous physique displays strength under pressure echoing the raw emotion of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” whose devastating lyrics ring out: ”I hurt myself today. To see if I still feel. I focus on the pain.” Äffi opens and closes with Butler standing with her hands crossed below her windpipe, fluttering breathily as if to evoke the wings of a dove, or an angel being called home. In a terrifying moment, Butler hovers horizontal to the stage, limbs flailing, fighting unseen forces, struggling to stay afloat, her belly supported by a low café table which lurked unnoticed in the shadows.
Rena Butler in Äffi by Marco Goecke. Photo by Amber Bliss
Lifting a knee, she balances, arms tautly spread in warrior pose, her energy flowing through her pointed index fingers. Frantically, Butler scoops feelings from the air, stuffing them in huge gulps into her gaping maw. Tortured by inner demons, an isolated twitching in an extended foot drives propelling hops, as she clutches the sides of her head. Elbows bucking in distress she sinks, legs deeply splayed, as her head falls between her knees.
Cash’s “We’ll Meet Again,” takes on a more poignant tone, as Butler facing away from us, slashes her throat. In her final throes she observes with fascination her shimmering hand as it flies around before settling crushingly upon her chest.
SFDanceworks Season 7 makes a strong argument for the enriching experience of the dance from disparate but superlative voices as a foundational necessity for a rich performance ecosystem for artists and viewers alike. I can’t wait to see it again this evening.
Review by Jen Norris, published November 9, 2024.
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