Sunday's rainy afternoon connected strongly to ill-starred, the current performance from local dance company Hot Little Hands. The day was already cold and cozy, wet and gray, spiked with hints of melancholy and low light. ill-starred enhanced this mood.
Once ensconced in my seat at the IFCC theater, the show's tone began to emerge from the set with smart choices from choreographer Suniti Dernovsek and visual artist David Stein. ill-starred has a Goth/Victorian air about it that allowed my mind's eye to conjure up Edward Gorey illustrations: quite stylized and beautiful, with eerie, sad undertones. Dernovsek and Stein's minimalist set and lighting choices provide a timelessness in which the dancers move through a range of emotions and states of being that span fear, anger, envy, pride, wonder.
There's a wicked, mean streak that runs through the piece, too—shocking for a dance that's also laden with tea service, princess crowns, and fairy dresses. I thought of bullying, bratty, jealous girls, and how they act out their insecurities. And the six dancers act out quite a bit. Their movements range from brazenly choppy to delicately fluid, from aggressive to tender, from the robotic to the sensuous. Ryan Bjorn Cross's music—syncopated beats, twirps, and chirps that punctuate the stage—provide a perfect score that give the performers' movements and moods volition.
The performance was more than a study in dance; the piece offered a tableau in which intense emotions unravel and still retain order, too. The women's expressions remained blank for most of the show, yet a deep rawness of feeling was communicated through their bodies and eye contact. Each movement had purpose. Every glance, intentional. Each individual was poised and polished, yet not stiff or brittle. The dancers' interactions (forced touch, intertwined limbs) managed to create another character on stage that was grander than the sum of the six. Each individual was solid, yet the collective had enormous power and grace.
ill-starred is the most emotionally and intellectually challenging performance piece I've seen this fall. (Are you paying attention, TBA?) It's beautiful. It's intimate. There's a richness to it, and, even though it's quite minimalist, it's complicated. I was not at all ready for it to end, but when it did, I was propelled back into the grayness of the afternoon equipped with something much more fulfilling than what the day originally offered.
Disclosure: the writer received complimentary tickets to this performance, courtesy of Hot Little Hands.
View the slideshow for more ill-starred images, or visit our Flickr gallery:
Photos © 2009 Kenneth Aaron Neighborhood Notes
Word to the wise: When you attend this performance next weekend, as I hope you will, make sure it?s when babies aren?t also offered entry. The seven-month-old next to me clearly loved the show as much as I, as demonstrated by the sounds consistently emitted from his grin, but it was obvious that his entitled father was too engaged in tracking the boy?s chirps and gurgles to notice much of the performance at all.
We would expect nothing less from Hot Little Hands.
This weekend we will arrive from Wisconsin to see for ourselves.
I hope you enjoy the performance!