Dancers unveil smooth ‘Moves’
By Theodore Bale
Sunday, November 19, 2006

The standard group repertory show, the most common format in the local dance scene, becomes something quite different in the eyes of curator Alissa Cardone. Friday night’s “Critical Moves” program at Green Street Studios had a coherent thread running through it. All the choreographers are young, and it’s safe to say they represent a new wave in contemporary dance.

The first four dances were solos performed by the choreographers, and each had the purity of a Zen garden. Restricted to a few elements, these challenging dances require the viewer to stop searching for a plot and instead to discern the eccentricities of abstraction.

Ryuji Yamaguchi’s “Self-Portrait” shows evidence of his recent work with Douglas Dunn. Nothing in it looks borrowed from classical ballet or modern dance. At times it seemed as though he was trying to squash a bug. In other moments it was like an invisible force was attempting to pull him offstage. He repeated the phrases while ruminating in Japanese, resulting in a theatrical and perplexing event. Wendy Jehlen’s gorgeous “Dawn” didn’t travel much. It was more about the careful generation of rhythm and tempo in the arms, an elegant accumulation of energy.
Ruth Bronwen used Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” to generate an episode in between a sun salutation and a classical petit allegro variation. Her stage presence is so commanding that the piece succeeded even when she fell back on her classical technique between the more original phrases. Deborah Butler’s “Bones/Breath/Body” was the most thorough statement of the first half, one long phrase of fluid proportions set to shakuhachi music performed by Phil Nyokai James.

Ingrid Schatz and DeAnna Pellecchia might be the sexiest and most ironic duo on the local scene. Their five-part “Sole” vacillated between unison archetype (a tap duet to a French chanson) and stage combat. This was followed by Kate Digby and Erin Gottwald’s humorous “B & E,” set to Mozart. Both duets finished with one woman claiming physical victory of the other.

“Critical Moves” At Green Street Studios, Cambridge, Friday night.