Arthropodic Animal: Insecta, December 17, 2004, DiverseWorks

This new work was choreographed by Amy Ell of Houston. To quote the DiverseWorks press release, this piece "investigates the dichotomy of nature, the beauty within horror." Insects are the theme, and presumably we should be horrified by the maggots, who frankly are just doing what they need to do without trying to bother anyone. (After all, they only eat you after you're dead.) Which is my way of saying that I found much beauty and little horror in this performance. When the dance opens, we see a white wall across the back of the stage covered with projected images of insects in the larval stage. The wall is tilted back somewhat, and has hand- and footholds much like a climbing wall. There are also about 8 seats on wall, which gradually reveal to seat dancers dressed in white who blend in with the wall and the projected images. (I was terribly impressed by the ease with which the dancers climbed to their starting positions in the dark.) The music started as an amplification of what can best be described as insect noises. The dancers moved slowly among the projections, first in place and then moving along the wall. Eventually the dancers came down to the floor, where it became clear that their hair was artfully arranged in random ponytails and braids that gave the illusion of antennae. ("Hair and makeup" was credited to Solution.) A striking part of the work came when Lindsey McGill, Bonnie Boykin, and Paola Georgudis performed a short trio, which given the spacing of the dancers and stationary nature of the movement, amounted to more of a solo and a duet, since one could not see both groups at once in the small theater. The dancers faced the audience and went through a series of deliberate hand and arm gestures. The music was gentle but had a persistent pulsing rhythm. The effect was mesmerizing. Eventually the dancers shed their white costumes to reveal their adult black costumes beneath. Several dancers exited and re-emerged with headpieces consisting of hair extensions that draped down and were attached to their wrists. Attached to the hair were cable ties (an ingenious touch) that stuck up in all directions. The dancers repeated the slow gestures from before, this time in a larger group. The headpieces served to add new dynamics to the movement. Perhaps it was meant as a reminder that as adults we do the same things that we're taught as children, but with more significance this time around. Dynamically most of the movement in the production is pretty sedate, but a nice contrast came towards the end, when the dancers marched across the stage like ants. Additional dancers came in for this part and added to the momentum. The dancers moved across the stage in fits and starts, but enough were moving at any one time to give an impression of continuous flow. The dancers circled around both backstage and out in front of the house to keep up the flow for several minutes. When the flow ended, the core dancers enacted a confrontational scene, evoking several parallel fights for dominance. The movement was energetic and aggressive and over far too soon! The performance ended with Paola Georgudis walking from downstage right in the tiniest steps, dragging a long tail like the train of a wedding dress, which she eventually started manipulating with her feet. The other dancers made their way back up the wall, and the lights went down. This seemed to be the end of the life cycle, as the adult insect had just laid eggs, to be hatched at the beginning of the next performance. Arthropodic Animal: Insecta is well-conceived, original, and thought-provoking, and I hope Houston gets another chance to see it. All of the dancers (all women) did an excellent job with this material. I found out afterwards that Lindsey McGill was sick; she did an amazing job of performing without even giving a hint of this. It couldn't have been easy (or painless) for the dancers to move around on the wall, which they managed with both grace and dignity.