Bowen McCauley Dance: Verve and EbullienceBy Heather Tod Mitchell
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The blatant jokes were gone, but the characteristic verve and ebullience, hallmarks of Lucy Bowen McCauley's style, were certainly evident at the company's fall presentation at Gunston Arts Center, September 20 and 21.
Showing an increasingly mature style, the evening presented a complex variety of moods. The creepy Prelude to Battery to music by Ned Rorem, featured Alison Crosby, Jennifer Olin, Beverly Prahl, Karen Reedy and Robert Sidney in army-colored khaki unitards replete with red slashes, designed by Judy Hansen. The dancers alternated severe, almost military-style poses with very modern-organic releases, a sort of Nijinski- meets-Graham choreography, creating an uneasy-feeling piece that ended abruptly. Although Two-Bas features the odd instrumental pairing of tuba and piano, music by Enrique Crespo and Balada India, there was nothing odd about the charming pas de deux between Bowen McCauley and the lovely Peter Stark. With the dancers clad in warm cinnamon colored unitards designed by Rebecca Donovan, the piece was romantic and witty, with Bowen McCauley juxtaposing jazz-type pelvic thrusts, bicycling legs and a bizarre headstand tripod with classical movement, making it work within the cheery mood of the interlude. Allegro Energico is an engaging little fillip which brought out the entire company, including Matthew Gayton, performing a sort of feel-good romp to music by Max Bruch. Although bright, with a light balletic style, the dance really needs to be cranked up a notch in pace: when there is little substance to a piece, the dancing must sparkle, sparkle, sparkle and, although genial enough, the dancersâ work was a trifle ragged. But the premiere presentation of Between Two Worlds shows just how much Bowen McCAuley has matured as a dancemaker. To the strange strains of a string quartet by Korngold, dressed in street clothes designed by Mane Rebelo-Plaut, a quintet of dancers individually trembled, shook and wrung their hands in black despair. After trying and failing to connect with the others, Roger Plaut has a nervous breakdown right before our eyes. There is tremendous drama in the way Bowen McCauley has the dancer perform the entire solo moving in a diagonal line, no curves or spreading out, just back and forth, like a bug in a box, the moment tremendously enhanced by the knife-edge blue and white lighting plot designed by Martha Mountain. But the third movement brings the dancers back, Prozac-happy in white pajama-like togs; they seem to have found some peace, and this time Plaut joyfully but firmly pushes the others away. But in the final moments, the woman he is lifting begins to start and tremble. Again. Elliptical and emotional, the piece seems to need a link between the second and third sections: we lack the moment of revelation which causes the Stepford-like veneer of peace in the third section. What it all meant is certainly subjective. However, the woman sitting behind me observed, "Wow - I have days like that at the office, too, except I don't usually get to 'the white part!'" Whether getting to "the white part" is a good thing or a bad thing depends entirely on how you interpreted the dance.... |