by Leigh Witchel
Steven Petronio joined in the Cunningham centennial as part of the fifth year of his Bloodlines program, but it was a solo by a far less-known choreographer that was the real find.
Petronio also contributed his own new work, “American Landscapes.” It started unexpectedly; the audience taking their seats after an intermission discovered Petronio and Martha Eddy in jumpsuits, two-stepping to Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” They wandered across the stage, reading a book together, leaning in for an almost-kiss. The music cut off and Petronio exited, leaving Eddy to do a short solo of windmilling arms like a bird ramping up speed to take flight. Petronio returned and leaned into her as the lights went out.
The rest of the company walked onstage in simple olive dancewear. Robert Longo’s photos were projected in a video triptych at the back, a bit like Robert Rauschenberg’s photographs in Trisha Brown’s “Glacial Decoy,” but the selection was more pointed: the American flag, faces of all types and races, an astronaut, a cowboy, a mushroom cloud. The music, by Jozef van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch was repetitively soothing, like something plaintive off the Windham Hill label.
A solo for Nicholas Scisione felt inspired by Cunningham, with isolated arms moving double-jointed and independently from the legs. But largely, “American Landscapes” moved at an andante tempo, with the cast walking purposefully before heading into long, familiar movement phrases; the tugging, leaning and torsion that Petronio often uses. The dancers arced through long attitude renversées and hugged. The cast assembled at the back, holding hands to ebb and flow in an unsteady post-modern kickline. It disgorged its ends offstage to become a quintet, then a quartet.
Longo’s photos morphed into recent history: a football player kneeling, a woman in a pussy hat. The projection turned to a red rose, and the dancers dutifully arranged in circle, swaying and leaning to and fro. Moving from the back towards us, the cast echoed Eddy’s flapping arms, turned upstage, and the dance was done. Longo’s imagery was far more pungent than Rauschenberg’s cool post-modernism and seemed to imply commentary, but Petronio was content to be as oblique as Brown. He relied on the photos to set the mood, but didn’t forge an association.
Cunningham’s “Tread,” from 1970, features Bruce Nauman’s scenery, which was as simple as it gets in concept but must have been a pain in the ass in execution: a line of industrial fans at the front of the stage pointing out at us, standing sentinel and forming a filter that we had to look through to see the dancing.
Though the fans suggested we were indoors, the cast began on the floor, as if lounging for a meal en plein air. To a hum, the dancers got up one by one for careful, slow feats of adagio that mark Cunningham’s work: attitudes that slowly promenaded and high extensions.
“Tread” looked less linear or discrete on Petronio’s dancers than it would have on Cunningham’s own company. Positions and turnout were not as clear; Cunningham’s dancers, even when in intermediate positions, were precise (at least in the company’s later period). Here, arms en avant or to the side were approximate. Petronio’s dancers were also warmer: shades of amusement flickered in their gazes, or even concentration bordering on irritation. They didn’t shy away from interpreting what they were dancing. If one dancer fell or lay on top of another, they didn’t avoid the implications.
The way “Tread” was constructed was reassuringly Merce-ian. Towards the end, an accreting phrase brought all the dancers back to the stage one by one. They assembled into a group and sat down, while one man fell into them. The pastoral feel remained as they posed like lawn sculptures. The cast got up and everyone simply walked off stage right to end.
Rudy Perez’s solo work “Coverage Revisited” is from the same year as “Tread,” but Perez’s work is far less well-known. Perez studied with Graham and Cunningham, created solos with the Judson Dance Theater and at 89 is still active and teaching in Los Angeles. “Coverage” didn’t have the same ambition as Cunningham’s larger scale, but it deserves more familiarity for its keen observations. [Author’s note – alas, there were no press photos available at the time of publication. For a good preview with rehearsal shots, check out Siobhan Burns’ piece in The Times.]
Ernesto Breton stood alone on stage in white coveralls and a blue hard hat while a recording of “On Top of Old Smokey” played. The song cut off after a phrase and Breton repositioned in the blackout. Repeat. After one of the blackouts he reappeared with a roll of tape and marked off a large square on the stage.
The sound collage, also by Perez, now is a time capsule from 1970 that still feels current, including a radio ad about abortion – except you could no longer be certain from the name of the organization speaking what side of the issue it was on.
Bagpipes played. Breton walked a tightrope on the tape perimeter. Was it a guideline or a boundary? He took off his hat and lay down. In silence, he peeled out of the coveralls to brief tights and a headband. The movement was the found movement of the Judson Church, but Perez’s life brought him different material – after Breton jogged, he shot a basket. As cool and post-modern as the construction was, there was automatically a different viewpoint. To an incantation in Spanish, he rotated around the floor, saluting the heavens.
Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life” played as Breton moved towards us unsteadily racing forward but instead hitting the floor. He struggled up, and suddenly all unsteadiness was gone; he moved like a gymnast ready for a tumbling pass. Heading to the corner, his posture became poised in a completely different way and he danced a white-sneakered ballet: elegant demi port de bras, entrechats and arabesques.
Breton paused to put his coveralls and hat back on, and shuffled forward like a mechanical doll as a tinny recording of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” blared. Removing the tape, he pitched it into the center of the stage, but didn’t quite finish removing it. Instead, he came forward to take off his construction hat. He placed it over his heart, but that was a fake-out. It came to rest over his crotch.
Perez packed the experience of being out of the mainstream into that terse solo without ever resorting to the obvious. Breton’s magnetic performance achieved full impact without milking a thing. There was so much context with so little emoting.
Breton looked great in “American Landscapes” as well. Petronio’s dancers, Breton, Scisione, also Mac Twining, were articulate, clean and long: you could see it all.
Looking at his bloodlines for half a decade, it’s fascinating to see where Petronio’s DNA comes from – and it’s not always where you would think. Perez built a congruence between the production elements and the dance to make his message. Petronio, for all his flamboyance, is a Merce-ist. He was content to let the music, dance and art exist on the same stage.
copyright © 2019 by Leigh Witchel
“Tread,” “Coverage Revisited,” “American Landscapes” – Stephen Petronio Company
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York, NY
April 11, 2019
Cover: Ryan Pliss and Ernesto Breton in “American Landscapes.” Photo © Ian Douglas.
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