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| Photo by Erika Latta | Tyner Dumortier, Casey Loomis, Joseph Poulson (L-R)
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Mental and Physical Landscapes of a Dream
Julie Bour shows Why Now? at DNA
By QUINN BATSON
Offoffoff.com
An ingenue makes it through some stormy dreams to reach the light in Julie Bour's phantasmic Why Now?. Five powerful dancers meld well in three sections and many scenarios.
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| | | JULIE BOUR: WHY NOW? | Choreography by: Julie Bour.
Dancers: Tyner Dumortier, Jaquelyn Elder, Casey Loomis, Melissa Peraldo, Joseph Poulson.
Music by: Kyle Olson, DeVotchKa.
Set design by: Benjamin Heller.
Costumes by: Lydia Joy France, Julie Bour.
Lighting design by: Mandy Ringger.
| | SCHEDULE | DNA
October 21-23, 2011
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Mirrors and silhouetting backlight on Casey Loomis bring us immediately into a multi/other-dimensional space that shifts and warps almost imperceptibly. Music and sonic ambiences come and go, sometimes abruptly, as Loomis works her way through big, quick, stop-and-start movements, dazzling softly. This first section, full of spacial and temporal dislocations, is aptly titled "Chapter 3 ?: Questioning a third space."
"Chapter 1: WHY" casts Loomis as a sculptable youth surrounded by a shifting cast of four Pygmalions trying to shape and shake her — Melissa Peraldo and Jacquelyn Elder open with a duet that is all gams and sass, in waist-length raincoats and little else, wearing one high heel each, and Tyner Dumortier and Joseph Poulson join the mix first with duets with Loomis, Poulson entering, humorously enough, in only a bath towel. Dumortier looms larger, possibly playing the romantic lead. Intense duets dominate this section, with small moments of absurdity breaking the tension, as in a dream. The mystery trunk onstage is finally opened here, too. Loomis finds a freaky hand, heart and ear inside. These could mean anything or nothing, but they are intriguing discoveries and give the trunk some funk. The program notes describe things well here: "... a mental landscape devoid of the boundaries of time and space where the dynamic collision of memories, interpretations and aspirations takes place."
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| Photo by Erika Latta | Melissa Peraldo and Jaquelyn Elder
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The last section, "Chapter 2: NOW" decelerates gently, with more group work and less Loomis. Why Now? feels so well crafted and rich. Sound design by Kyle Olson and lighting by Mandy Ringger certainly help, but the choreography and dancing keep satisfying. The ending sequence, with a heartbeat slowing, recovering, slowing, feels simultaneously sensual and sleepy, and as Loomis finally reappears and walks into the light leaking between two curtains at the back of the stage, the effect is eerie — transcendence or surrender seem equally likely.
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| | Photo by Erika Latta | | | Tyner Dumortier and Casey Loomis
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OCTOBER 24, 2011
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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