Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
Photos: Bonnie Kamin Courtesy of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
Throughout history, western theater dance has borrowed from other cultures. Sometimes the dances are adopted and stylized; movements may be incorporated in choreographies. There are blends and fusions. But "A Slipping Glimpse," a 90-minute piece performed by the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company at the University of Maryland's Clarise Smith Performing Arts Center, integrates western modern dance and Indian dance yet keeps them somewhat apart.
"I respect the Indian culture. Our two worlds co-exist and influence each other," said the San Francisco-based Jenkins, a free-spirited doyenne and experimenter who founded her company nearly four decades ago and is its artistic and choreographic director. Indian dance itself is multicultural with diverse classical and folk dance, and Indian choreographers borrow, fuse and stylize different dance genres. Choreographer Tanusree Shankar, who has her own company in India and choreographic associate for "A Slipping Glimpse," has drawn upon classical dances as has Bollywood, the Indian film industry for style, movements and gestures. Jenkins's interaction with the Tanusree Shankar Dance Company in India, and the county's multisensory dynamics, inspired "A Slipping Glimpse."
The work takes its name from abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning's saying that "'Reality is a slipping glimpse." Jenkins explains, "This glimpsing (and slipping) might be understood as doubled here, if we take dance as both a thing to be seen and a way of seeing. That in any case provides the initial premise for this new work, conceived at a vertiginous moment in history when it's often difficult to tell on which side of the looking glass we are standing — or dancing. Public, private, inside, outside -- all such terms seem open to questioning and re-exploration."
The dance is a multi-layered, collaborative effort. Dancers created movement that was then configured and refined by and with Jenkins. Michael Palmer, present at the outset, provided the text which was recorded, and he helped to coordinate the choreography with elements of the score. Alexander Nichols responded to the developing work with provocative ideas about sets and lighting that would not only frame, but actively shape it. Paul Dresher created the score as the choreography evolved. The phrasing of the movement was influenced by the sounds of the live Paul Dresher Ensemble elevated above the stage. Jenkins says, "We must emphasize again the role of the dancers as a community of makers in fashioning the ultimate character and atmosphere of the piece."
"A Slipping Glimpse" began outdoors on a grassy knoll behind the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center courtyard, and was fortunately accompanied by a stunning sunset. Trees silhouetted against the sky provided a dreamy backdrop. Somewhat mysteriously, the dancers, costumed in Indian-like silky pants and tunics, appeared in a processional from a distance. Reaching a center space, the dancers moved in shifting spatial patterns performing Tai chi-like actions and occasionally gesturing with prayer-like hands. This prologue conveyed the sense of a puja, the Indian offering to the gods prior to a performance.
Performers and audience moved into the theater. In addition to regular theater seating, some members of the audience were seated on three sides of the stage. The set consisted of 10-foot blood-red platforms onstage on which performers danced and from which they descended. Two dancers would grasp a third and slowly lower the dancer, as if cautiously pouring liquid into a narrow bottle. Dancers cantilevered themselves off of each other. Another platform was behind the audience at the back of the theater providing yet another dance stage. As a dancer would move from the main stage to the back platform, the performers further closed the distance between dancer and spectator.
The excellent dancers moved in these spaces with bound and unbound energy, angles and curves. There were solos, pairings, some tender and some tough duets and interdependent groupings. Couples represented the nine rasas, a range of emotions the dancers try to evoke in the observer. The sensually evoked moments of fear and wonder, celebration and loss, encounters, confrontations and support in this physically demanding work were exhilarating.
As is common in so many choreographies, the work would have benefited from editing. Audience members tune out when there is a too-lengthy sameness, as the second third of the performance had. But spectators jolted to attention when more dramatic music and movement punctuated the performance.