September 5, 2003 -- Yerba Buena
Center, San Francisco
opens with a spotlight illuminating a man lying prone, swimming his legs
and arms as if the light pattern on the floor was a pool of water. It’s
Tere O’Connor, a man who though uncharacteristically chubby for a dancer,
moves with striking fluidity and precise articulation. His hair is a shock
of curls that springs like a stem topping a carrot. A Guggenheim fellow,
and the recipient of two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies),
who recently choreographed a solo work for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s 2003
tour O’Connor is based in New York. This is the San Francisco debut of
two of his recent works, "Winterbelly" (2002) and "Choke"
Surrounding O’Connor as he flops and flails on the stage surface, are
four women and two men, wearing androgynous tunics and capri’s of ice
blue, white and navy. They begin to move in a vocabulary that is both
fluid and angular, a gestural text that evokes, without mimicking, the
behavior of birds. The dancers hop, lean, tilt, and turn their heads.
The music at times sounds like the flapping of wings. The audience chuckles
when the dancers become shuffling pairs of penguins, or when they stop
with their arms suspended overhead, elbows relaxed, to absently rub their
The set is a simple grove of blue leafless trees with branches that are
slightly bent as if in the wind. Music by James Baker (with excerpts from
the work of Sofia Gubaidulina) punctuates orchestral strains with the
sound of bells, buzzing alarm clocks, dentist drills, and the shrill whistle
of a bad microphone connection.
These birds are out of their element, reaching with akimbo arms and outstretched
fingers to adjust to an unfamiliar winter season. O’Connor and a tall
angular woman preen in a duet of mutual grooming activities, plucking
a loose feather from a partner’s head. In a trio, a man and a woman dribble
a second woman back and forth between them—the woman pushing outstretched
hands against the woman’s chest, and the man catching the back of the
woman’s head in his hand. The piece ends with the dancers’ arms curving
overhead, mirroring the wintery windbent trees as if the birds have become
one with their environment.
In "Choke," three women and two men wear sleeveless black torso-hugging
shells and pants that emphasize the gold glow of the dancers’ skin. Four
horizontal rows of white fabric drape the rear scrim. The music of James
Baker (this time with excerpts from the work of Russian composer, Alfred
Schnittke), alternates from cello strains performed by Wendy Sutter to
environmental sounds like moaning and cocktail party chatter. Occasionally
the score ramps up into a driving rhythm. The movement is highly gestural
and at times given to pantomime. But motions of answering the phone, smoking,
and head scratching, in the hands of O’Connor, are not story telling.
The dancers simply report a series of passing images. " What I think
and what I move exist in parallel lines, they do not meet and they do
not describe each other, yet their simultaneous presence comprises meaning,"
O’Connor writes in his artists statement for the program magazine.
Sometimes the dancers mouth phrases, weep, or gape open their mouths in
a mute yell. At the end, the entire group silently sobs to the sound of
a record player stylus scratching on vinyl.
O’Connor has a distinctive vocabulary that is immediately recognizable
in both works. Notably, neither piece includes spoken text, an element
O’Connor has become known for. Instead O’Connor deftly wields his movement
signature so that it reads differently in each of these two pieces. As
he states in the program, "No longer on a youthful search for a personal
voice, I search for the correct "language" for a given work."
The result, as seen in this evening of work, is subtle and smart.
Edited by Jeff.
Please join the discussion
in our forum.