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At Gunston Theater, Lines That MoveBy Lisa Traiger Thursday
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Lucy Bowen McCauley makes smart, sophisticated dances. As a choreographer she skillfully and readily blurs the line between modern dance and ballet, casting a spell for her 10 fine dancers to articulate. Her troupe, Bowen McCauley Dance, presented an evening of works Saturday at Arlington's Gunston Theater. In the barefoot realm of modern dance, Bowen McCauley not only puts her dancers in ballet slippers, but in "Hold Sway," a company premiere, she uses pointe shoes to elevate the three women to an even higher realm. A study setting two dancers against one, "Hold Sway," uses a brisk, stringent score by Giovanni Pandolfi that buffets the dancers back and forth in quivering lines. As one dancer, Suzanne Bryant, strikes a 180-degree arabesque, another strokes her uplifted leg like the bow of a violin. "Fivefourone," a second premiere, takes five women through a linear study in asymmetry. Pianist Laurie Bunn played selections from Jean Sibelius as the dancers' geometry filled the space with diagonal slashes of arms and legs. A final movement using jazzy slaps on the hips felt incongruous against the earlier stricter body choices. A throwaway piece for three men, "Foot Fetish," plays off the music--Paolo Conti's "Happy Feet" and J. Scott's "The Way I Walk." The bare-chested, barefoot men run, skip, skitter, jump, point and flex with their feet while additional hip and pelvis action eggs the dancers--and audience--on. The most ambitious work, "Rapture," from 1999, capped the 90-minute program. The powerful opening statement made by the Brahms Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 1, propelled the dancers--four women and two men--into expanding and receding currents of movement. Grace and awkwardness--as in many Bowen McCauley works--reside side by side. A swooping run leads into a heavy-footed heel-emphasized walk. Solos, pairs and groups interchange and the theme of embracing arms carries the piece to its luscious finish.
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