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| Photo by Ian Shand | L-R: Ali Schecter, Malinda Crump, Jeff Kent Jacobs, Matthew Oaks, McKay Montz, Yin Yue, Ariana Siegel
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No Thread, In Red
Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup wanders and falls through Joyce Soho
By QUINN BATSON
Offoffoff.com
Stefanie Nelson's first evening-length show at Joyce Soho had many of the movements of her previous shorter pieces but none of their magic, sadly. Crimson vinyl flooring does nothing to brighten things; the combination of bright red and black gives a feel of unease and cloying saturation, a deadly combination for a piece with little dynamic or narrative motion. Seating the dancers onstage in facing chairs flanking the stage doubles a sense that grows through the piece that we are all, dancers and audience, dispassionate voyeurs of what is going on onstage.
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| | | STEFANIE NELSON: PROXIMITY SPIRAL | Choreography by: Stefanie Nelson.
Dancers: Malinda Crump, Katie Federowicz, Jeffrey Kent Jacobs, McKay Montz, Matthew Oaks, Ali Schechter, Ariana Siegel, Yin Yue.
Music by: Sahand Rahbar.
Set design by: Solomon Weisbard.
Costumes by: Ashley Gardner.
Lighting design by: Solomon Weisbard.
| | SCHEDULE | Joyce Soho
March 18-21, 2010
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Themes that connected in earlier short works are minced here, so that only small bits of movement are recognizable, like seeing a bit of an old dress in a patchwork quilt. The overall effect is that of chopping many ingredients into tiny pieces and sprinkling the results across the stage over time. Lack of connection between dancers, which seemed intentional when paired with an individual or individuals striving for connection, here looks unintentional and soulless.
Motifs of falling, swaying and convulsing give these good dancers plenty of work, but in nearly an hour, there is no heat between male and female, and only same-sex duets between Matthew Oaks and McKay Montz and a much shorter bit between Ariana Siegel and Ali Schechter have any emotional meat. Both these duets are isolated incidents that feel like welcome aberrations.
A dispassionate ending narration of mundane observations about the first few numbers in the Fibonacci sequence — the stated inspiration for the title Proximity Spiral — does nothing to tie things together and feels as random as the rest of the piece.
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MARCH 22, 2010
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