Brian Brooks Moving Company Reynolds Industries Theater, Duke University American Dance Festival Durham, North Carolina
El Gallo, la Palma, El Pescado. Brian Brooks' astonishing "PIÑATA" plays out as vividly as a round of "Loteria," Mexico's version of Bingo. Nothing is left to chance, though, in this opulent and carefully constructed 70-minute dance. Brooks demonstrates that vital expression is the result of daunting discipline.
Last night the stage at the Reynolds Industries Theater was covered with a vacant white square upon which the first of ten scenes of "PIÑATA" commenced. By the end of the show, it was littered with pounds of multicolored confetti. Music from such divergent artists as Cesaria Evora, Cyndi Lauper, Senor Coconut, Scissor Sisters and Maurice Ravel provided accompaniment, along with original music by Tom Lopez. What was most stirring, however, was the athletic and controlled choreography, which pushes the limits of physical sustainability. Brooks knows endurance - he danced for Sean Curran and Elizabeth Streb before forming his company in 1996. Fortunately he's found a sturdy team of dancers (Nicholas Duran, Alexander Gish, Jo-Anne Lee and Weena Pauly) capable of realizing his vision.
The first event is silly. A small piñata donkey, posed a bit stage left and casting a tiny shadow under Jeremy Morris-Burke's backlighting, reminds the audience to turn off cell phones and pagers and then "sit back and relax, everything should be okay." With this simple introduction, Brooks revealed his attention to scale and proportion, his use of bold color, even his kind humor. Where would this happy little donkey take the viewer?
As he floated toward the proscenium on a thin wire, two dancers in white swim caps and white tights (decorated with bits of feather and marabou) entered to enact a slow ritual of blindfolding and then smashing the piñata. Evora's melancholy voice drifted in, three more dancers arrived, and the action moved to the floor. There were undulating waves of sit-ups, and then the dancers performed full-body jumps, like flopping fish who find themselves suddenly on dry land.
The scene that followed is straightforward and profoundly elegant. The dancers travel paths from each downstage corner, crossing in two lines of gentle traveling assemblés. White confetti drifts from their open palms. It changes to orange after several repetitions, and then a giant "X" emerges from the floor like a strange ghost. After the dancers exit, Brooks lets you stare at the scene for a little while. It's like visiting Stonehenge. You see the traces of some human ritual and feel oddly comforted by the mystery.
The remaining scenes (a sort of cockfight, a seated calypso, a pas de trois, even an upstage parade of piñatas) take the viewer through a shifting kaleid-oscope of disciplined actions. They are experiential rather than symbolic.
Brooks likes repetition, most particularly in a scene performed solely with the arms and hands to Ravel's popular "Bolero." Dressed in traditional black flamenco gowns, the five dancers showed each harp arpeggio with a flick of the wrist, each tympani beat with a swooping elbow. It's an audacious, and totally mesmerizing, finale.