Dance Comes of Age

Convergence in the world of dance can be rare.  This past weekend’s summit at the Auditorium Theater brought together three quite different dance companies and shed new light on what contemporary dance looks like in an age glistening with technology.

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, the oldest and most traditionally grounded company of the three; and one that embeds African American influences into the contemporary dance aesthetic, launched what was to feel like a mini-festival.

The other two companies, Visceral Dance and Ate9, distinguish themselves by being much more progressive and, in the case of Ate9, bring shiny new concepts into the mix that radically alter the visual perception of what dance is and can be.

All of the performances proved entertainment juggernauts.  And in many ways they all shared two alluring traits; boldness and strength.

Deeply Rooted’s passionate Until the Lambs Become Lions was the first hint at how effective those two characteristics work together.  The dance gave each of these properties even more impact by channeling their force through women; effectively reinterpreting the definition of power.

Using the male rather than the female form as its initial focus, Deeply Rooted then flipped the equation by closing with an older work, Heaven, that turned sensuality into a vehicle for promoting human coexistence.  There was nothing languid or passive in the music used to carry this message.  Drum beats loaded with as much heat as brawn broke through the background to carry the dance in warp speed; all the while retaining and re-enforcing the essence of the Deeply Rooted style.

Amazingly young to be so accomplished, Nick Pupillo founded the relentlessly progressive and endlessly impressive Visceral Dance Chicago just five years ago.  Like Ate9, Visceral performed but a single piece, Soft Spoken.  A work created this year by Pupillo.  With dancers walking, gliding and running across the stage in profile, you’re first struck by the near requisite leanness of dancers’ bodies.  Bodies molded by craft.  They were like machines on display idling patiently before being called into service.  That call came quickly with the full company eventually moving into the core of the work.   Crisp, poised, confident; they were like an orchestra performing at its zenith before transitioning into a series of provocatively choreographed duets.  Each one was startling because so much got packed into the tiny narrative being danced before your eyes.   Each told its own tale of lovers torn between the constants of desire and doubt.  Only here, you could sense the realness in the experience whether they were dancing to Sinatra’s Stranger in the Night or to Judy Collins’ melancholy whispers.   Elegant, sleek and radical within the lines, Visceral Dance Chicago has all the markings of a major player and one that stimulates as much curiosity as it does excitement.

The same is true for Ate9, the West coast company who closed the night’s Auditorium showcase.  Fascinating in their approach to dance, Ate9 merges elements of conventional contemporary dance with concepts more at home in the world of improvisation.  Rather than the dancer relying on their own instincts to define and determine their movements, they look to the choreographer or artistic director for guidance on how to interpret what they are asked to do.  The process is an entrée to highly innovative dance.

Known as gaga, the approach also creates an environment where the profile of athleticism in dance is raised, even celebrated. Jordan Lovestrand’s demonstration of how well suited lithe can be to any body type was but one remarkable example.

Dancing to live music spilling from the creative wellspring of one man, Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, dancers stirred to life as robots or androids before gaining their stride and settling into pure virtuosic delight.  Kotche, alternating between xylophone and drums, made music that was haunting, divine, funny and thrilling.  The dancing matched his precociousness at every turn; often by making the awkward beautiful and the silly inspired.

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater

Visceral Dance Chicago

Ate9 Dance Company

November 16,  2018

The Auditorium Theatre

50 E. Ida B. Wells Dr.

Chicago, IL    60605

www.auditoriumtheatre.org