 |
 |
 |
|||||
|
| ABOUT TRaC |
MultiTRaC Spring 2006
Thank You and Good Nite
Monica Bill Barnes Dances Her Way to NYC with Thank You and Good Night A sign in the entrance of Dance New Amsterdam, on 280 Broadway, welcoming the audience to Monica Bill Barnes's Thank You and Good Night informs us that this is the New York premiere of the new choreography. A performance, which is a contrast of movements and meanings. Two dancers (Deborah Lohse and Monica Bill Barnes) with long warm coats walk slowly onto the stage, which is decorated festively with balloons on all five spotlighted tables and confetti on the floor. The dancers begin their sharp movements in unison and are joined by two performers (Beth Bradford and Anna Smith). The dancers switch partners and begin two separate duets that throughout the show are entwined. One set changes into loose fitting dresses reminding the audience of childhood. During my childhood, I hated the big dresses my mother made me wear and I felt the dancers acted this image perfectly with their faces and choreography. These dancers trigger other childhood memories, especially of the silly "copy-cat" game. One follows what the other does around the entire performing space getting faster and more complicated as the music speeds up. In another scene, the two climb onto different tables and begin to rotate to a monotone beeping. The audience sits watching intensively to this part, trying to decipher the meaning. Before they figure it out, the other pair of performers has the stage with their lighter, adult, and slightly sexual mood to their dances. They wear skirts and humorous facial expressions. The changing levels of their moves are evident, but the dancers are usually in the mid-level. They perform some awkward movements, which are similar to modern dance, but then jump right into the more conservative tour jetes and pirouettes. The French and 1930s styled music by Karinne Keithley creates contrasting emotions and have the same unison with the lighting design (Jane Cox) as the dancers have with each other. As the big dress dancers try a difficult combination, one of them is faced with a struggle. She cannot perform the combination and her partner becomes frustrated. This is another memory trigger of when I am at dance rehearsal and want everything to be perfect. The other pair of performers join the two girls, but they do not seem notice the other. They concentrate on their own movements, but the duets still share a connection. When a big dress dancer falls, a skirt dancer is affected in the same way, whether she was dancing or merely standing. This performance is opened to any interpretation because Barnes's choreographed it in such a way that no one answer is wrong. My interpretation of this piece was aided with the elderly couple (Ursula Caspary Frankel and Jack Frankel) sitting at one of the party tables on the stage. This may had been their anniversary party and the partygoers recollecting their childhood and young adult memories. Memories stay with a person forever; therefore the dancers first came with their childhood memory, but then danced with the respective memory. The performers all left with whom they came because even after one exciting night, everything most come back to normal. And so, I had to come back to my normal life, but not before a Thank You and Good Night to this unique and thought-provocating dance performance.
|
|
