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Cold snap
In hyperTHERMIA, Antonietta Vicario and her dancers battle the blizzard at Chez Bushwick.
By QUINN BATSON
Offoffoff.com
Hyperthermia in a Siberian winter is usually the illusion of a dying mind in a freezing body. Antonietta Vicario's latest choreography is set in the snowy infinity of Siberia and addresses the concept of personal survival in a forbidding world.
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| | | HYPERTHERMIA | Company: Antonietta Vicario makes dances.
Choreography by: Antonietta Vicario.
Includes individual dances: hyperTHERMIA
Dancers: Julie Alexander, Nathalie Dessner, Kirsten Johansen, Gretchen Pallo, Antonietta Vicario.
| | SCHEDULE | Chez Bushwick
304 Boerum St. #11
Jan. 13-15, 2005
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Inert bodies, dressed completely in white with bits of white fur and lying on their backs in a random group, are the first image an entering audience registers. Only after there is complete silence in the performance space do the dancers begin audibly breathing, rustling, twisting or slapping the floor. This process of thawing out or reviving takes quite a bit of time. The set consists solely of a double loop of white cordrope at the dance floor perimeter to imply an endless circle of snow and ice. Accompanied only by sounds the dancers make, the tai chi slowness pushes the audience to the edge of attention. The sensory deprivation is like walking through silent fresh snow in a deep windless flurry.
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| Very athletic dancing and floorwork at the edge of control and self-preservation. | |
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The first sign of larger activity is Gretchen Pallo's odd but appealing drunken tightrope walking It's as if the earth is shifting beneath her feet with each step. Gradually a rising "wind" of whistling dancers rouses everyone and eventually whips the dancers into a hyperthermic frenzy of slicing legs spinning to the floor. Very athletic dancing and floorwork at the edge of control and self-preservation.
Vicario's new piece ends in hysterical laughter (Julie Alexander beats all) as spun-out dancers end up on the floor all over the place. The laughter dies out, with each in her own very personal activity. Kirsten Johansen's slow snow angels are a welcome and subtle humorous touch here, but the overall impression as the audience files out is one of dying and desperation, of exhaustion at the edge of madness or extinction.
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JANUARY 29, 2005
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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