I attended this performance back in February, but I thought I would share what I had written when I got home from the show. This is mostly just my notes, not really eloquent prose. Enjoy!

“Son of Gone Fishin’” (1981- Early Version) – three men, three women, all in soft gold and bronze clothing. The lighting is soft and natural, making sharp edges round. Apparently the infrastructure of the piece was related to the cross section of a tree trunk. The dancers randomly chose which music would be used for each performance of the piece. How would it be possible to choreograph/rehearse this way? It was unclear if the piece was intentional or improvisation. It is possible there was a commute between both and the dancers paused but also moved randomly. Their motions were so intricate they seemed almost impossible to recreate. There was a contrast between soft and hard and angles were broken with softness. I thought the dancers might represent fish as they paused in a cluster and then moved rapidly. The dancers’ interactions were very natural but the music was very jarring and repetitive. The dancers were nearly in unison as some points but never completely in sync. This aspect of the piece was highly unsettling. There were too many random moments or improvisations which made the piece difficult to follow. The aspect of retrograde was pleasing as the dancers worked through movements backward to their original positons. There was also an intriguing use of shadow in this piece. All jumps were low and soft and the dancers rarely stopped moving.

“You Can See Us” (1995) – two women in white. This was the “prettiest” piece of the four- the women were mirroring one another for the entire piece. In contrast to the first piece, I found there to be too much unison this time. The unison became monotonous and I longed for an interaction between the two women. If one was the “real” woman and the other was the mirror, I think that some interesting interactions could have been facilitated. Here silence was used as the dancers continued to travel through space even though there was no music. The dancers were always facing in opposite directions of one another. This piece was filled with suspension and angularity.

“Rogues” (2011) – Two men in blue shirts and gray pants. Entirely danced in unison, again, almost to the point of boredom. The music did very little to evoke any emotions for me, however, the use of a harmonica somewhat carried the theme. Maybe the “rogues” are from the South but they still just do what other people around them are doing. This piece followed the natural Brown progression which begins with small, sharp isolations. As the piece moves along, the dancers transition to “larger” more sweeping movements. Large movements by Brown standards. I enjoyed the floor work and use of the legs in this piece very much.

            “PRESENT TENSE” (2003) – Three men, three women, all in bright colors. The only thing I liked about this piece was all the cool lifts and “superman” moves balancing on peoples’ feet.