Unexpected ingredients can sometimes be tossed into tasty stews.
But at other times, combining bits of this with morsels of that produces
only a hodgepodge, as when the Laura Ward/Octavia Cup Dance Theater
presented Ms. Ward's new "Enredaderas: Entanglements" on Sunday at the
Merce Cunningham Studio.
The sprawling three-part production stirred together the sounds of an
ensemble playing music by Eli Shapiro, songs sung by David Gordon,
visionary poetry by Albert Zayden, additional texts by Frank Dellapolla
(who was also one of the dancers) and a taped collage designed by Stephen
George that ranged from Mozart to Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
Judy Thomas's sets were dominated by shapes suggesting hoops, fences and
an arch. Ms. Ward assigned steps on point[e] to everyone. But instead of
having dancers skim with balletic grace, she often had them stagger. And
the production as a whole tried to be a comic evocation of life's
unexpected entanglements.
People turned other people into puppets by tying strings to them and led
them on leashes like dogs. They had fights, stood on their heads, moved
like windup dolls and did parodies of vaudeville routines. Some of these
sequences were witty. But too many were antic, or even frantic, without
also being amusing. The choreographic stew refused to bubble.
The premiere shared the program with "L'Aigle Noir," a tribute to
fortitude that Ms. Ward created last year, showing women collapsing in
various ways, only to rise again. But its itsy-bitsy scenes were not
joined in a way that provided them with cumulative power. Ms. Ward failed
to connect her choreographic dots.
© Copyright 2005 NY Times
