I’m generally a major skeptic of dance as an art form. I freely admit, I’ve seen some groups use movement as a critical part of a larger work but when it’s all about the dance I usually find myself wishing I’d sat closer to the door. (No joke, the last time I saw a dance show I seriously considered climbing down the back of the risers and sneaking out the fire escape.) I believe it’s an inherent flaw to the art form, that there’s just something about dance and musical theater that it way too easily turns into heavy handed pretention and repetition, high-strung divas so busy sniffing their own farts they miss that the restlessly bored audience got the whole point in the first three minutes... in short, keeping my attention with dance theater is harder than dubbing a Nicholas Cage movie into Cantonese*.
With that in mind, I have no idea what possessed me to hike down to Bedlam on Friday night for "it’s strange to be here, the mystery never leaves you", a new dance work presented by Rosy Simas Danse. Realistically even the dancers don’t want me there, scowling and jaded and about the worst audience member a dance company could ask for, grabbing a chair up front scowling and rolling my eyes. And after work I really wanted nothing more than to sink into my couch for the night, not shower, change clothes, and head back out into the damp washcloth of humidity this city has been all summer, but some instinct whispered “Go see something. Anything. Find some life somewhere tonight."
To my surprise, I loved it, and I couldn't take my eyes away (even for the cute baby dykes in matching knee-high ring socks sitting next to me). And here I really thought getting stuck with a front row seat was going to be a brutal exercise in forcing a smile and taping my eyelids open. As often seems to happen when people like me who are decidedly not dance aficionados see something we love, I can’t really find the words to explain what I saw in it or why it moved me about all three pieces of the show. I can say that the wet, naked finale in which several dancers gathered in a gentle downpour of water and then slid and spun around the slick stage was beautiful, and oddly reminded me every time I’ve tried to explain sports to art folks: sometimes in that sweaty, emotional celebration of the body you see something brilliant happen. So I may have been selling you short, dancers.
When I got out of the show it was that perfect moment as the heat of the day started to break, and I borrowed a free city bike and rode home with the buzz of that show still in my legs. Everything in the world seemed fresh and fragrant and calm, and I became aware of that paradoxically energized, lavender tranquility that I have spent fifteen fevered years searching for and found in only a few disconnected places, like watching the waves crash into the taiga on Selwyn lake, sweated into the sheets of a certain blonde, or the Baha’i temple in Evanston that seems suffused with it it’s left a purple vein flowing all the way back into the heart of the city… but as usual, I digress.
In short, I simply felt good walking out of the theater that night. And that’s why for all my endless whining, I keep crawling back to the big G, keep dragging myself kicking and screaming to shows when my eyelids and my legs are ready to come tumbling down… because sometimes you see something beautiful and it washes away the rest of the day.
Keep spinning, dancers... I hope we can see this work presented again.
*-He never opens his mouth!
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