Bronwen MacArthur and Adele Myers are both pregnant; they're dancing about that in a new piece named "Quartet" since the fetuses are active participants.
In another sense, the two local choreographers have already given birth: to a new performance space. What, for over 50 years, was Frank's hardware store at 817 Grand Ave. has been stripped down to the classic small-theater bare floor and unadorned brick wall arrangement.
There are pillars in the room that are potential sightline obstacles, and the lack of a raised stage caused some of the audience at World Beyond's opening night to stand throughout Thursday's performance. But the audience had already been told that this was expected to be "a relaxed atmosphere--if your view is blocked, get up and move around." Frank's will be missed, but the Studio on Grand is a fine workable space, a nice shift from do-it-yourself practicality in that location to do-it-yourself creativity.
World Beyond has two more performances, Friday and Saturday (April 25 & 26) at 8 p.m. Call (203) 401-8948 . Tickets are $10.
I've seen pregnant women dance before; it's something of a cliche in the regional dance scene, marking common life transitions from big-city dance careers to settling down in smaller cities. But I've never seen an impending-motherhood duet before now, and seldom seen such acrobatic, flexible exploration of the female form in such a glorious, glowing, bellyful condition. As directed by Lisa Race, MacArthur and Myers move from sharp herky-jerky hand gestures to rounded swirls, turns and roles, stopping just short of splits and somersaults. It's hard not to get caught up in their exuberance, and the wonderment of new life.
Still, as I've said, pregnant women dancing is not new to me. The other two dances on this 90-minute bill were more intriguing from a critical standpoint. "Coming to Grips," choreographed by MacArthur to an original recorded score by Bryan Senti, opens with a artistically wrought catfight and develops gracefully into a four-dancer relationship saga: from threatening actions to order, beauty and style. Much of the dance seems to comment on social and choreographic formalities, the preening and posing of ballet mutated into modern dance terms.
Myers' "what we have is half of what we wish for...," on the other hand, is intent of breaking rules. A cast of five means the dancers can't pair up evenly and there's always a variable element. There's also a wondrous sound collage by Kyle Olson which could stand alone as a fully realized artwork yet works even better as provocative and propulsive pace-setter for the quintet. Olson's burst of beats, tones, ringing sounds, melodic chords, backward tapes and long passages from works by William Arnold, In Between Noise and Dim Dim also meshes neatly with the jumble of text and other other images digitally sculpted by Tara Burns. The dance, part of a longer work in progress that will have its premiere in late July in New York, has some insecure moments which seem hastily improvised rather than carefully set. But when it clicks, as it often does, this is a fascinating modernistic breakdown of a hectic society.
In a remarkably short time, MacArthur and Myers have distinguished themselves within the established New Haven dance scene. Here's their chief distinction: they're fashionable. Like most small dance companies, they eschew idealized dancer bodies in favor of natural ability and most realistically diverse physiques. But the dancers carry themselves, justifiably, as if they're the hippest people in the room. They dress with style, dance with self-control rather than raw abandon, and look cool doing it. The street clothes which adorn the dancers in "what we have.." aren't the stereotypical loose garb that's usually donned in modern dance yet can be as out-of-style as the tutu; these are functional yet form-fitting costumes that really help define the dancers and their attitudes. In "Coming to Grips," one of the dancers was sweating such that her hair stuck to her face in increasingly interesting patterns, and it seemed chic rather than unkempt. Such stylish savoir-faire is hard to come by in small-city dance.
It's touches like this that are settting Adele Myers and Bronwen MacArthur apart. That, and the fact that they've trailblazed a new dance space in town. More power to them, and to the little pre-natal terpsichoreans they're carrying.
