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Kazmira Pytlak Kazmira's Review of Splitstream at Dance Theatre Workshop Splitstream: A World of Its Own at DTW These are The Lost Children. Raised on rag dolls and Urban Outfitters, fraught with schizo nightmares and ripe with sex, theyâre now being showcased at Dance Theatre Workshop in three dances from choreographers Amanda Loulaki, Maria Hasabi and Gerald Casel. With mechanical, tattered grace and theatrics that make your skin crawl, the orphans of Splitstream make unsettling scenes of themselves that, like any exquisite disaster, dare you to look away. At the same time, however, the pieces can leave viewers scratching their heads, wondering, ãwell·what am I looking at?ä As all three choreographers spit in the face of conventions of dance in terms of beauty and structure, they create instead a brand of movement thatâs chaotic and often bewildering. Though indecipherable at times, itâs certainly intriguing. Frenetic, mechanical, and deeply psychological, it is dance that is crushed by and even embraces gravity, rather than trying to ignore it. In ãHi, My Name is Cleo,ä the first of the trio, the dancers are grounded in just this way, twitching and struggling under an invisible weight. Perhaps the trappings of childhood or madness or both, as the four Raggedy Ann-chic playthings peekaboo you or poke around wind-up toy puppies before splaying their frayed denim skirts on the floor in frustrated convulsions. They parallel and contradict one another like schizophrenic voices, fighting for control but only falling under the gorgeous hypnosis of their own movements. Hasabiâs ãLate Night Futureä is even more absorbed in itself and its own rhythms. It begins with a four-person love tangle reminiscent of both the candy-raver orgy in KIDS and a can of worms. The dancers collapse into each other and into a state of idleness. As they try and separate and move forward they find themselves caught in the same tangle of limbs and repetitions. Simultaneously struggling and hesitating to break free, they throb with the tensions of adolescent doldrums, of waiting, as the title suggests, for life to happen. The repetition of space and movement that is intriguing in the first two pieces, however, grows tired and self-involved in the third. Caselâs ãFoibleä seems to let the dancers ãgrow upä with sleek dresses, ties and khakis, the musical accompaniment of violins and an on-stage accordion, and more complex one-on-one relationships. But as these dancers, too, are broken and jerky in their movements and their interactions even more confused, and the piece ends up traveling nowhere. The dancers only regress into themselves, moving in circles of nothing and eventually collapsing in jagged jerks back to the floor, where it all began. While the sequence of Splitstream seems to suggest some connection between the dances, a process of aging or development, thereâs no way to know for sure. The entire show is up for all kinds of interpretation, and so, the classic conundrum of abstract art arises: Does it mean everything or nothing? Are the choreographers commenting on urban life or gender roles, exploring psychosis or dreams? Are they challenging standards of dance and beauty? Or are they making art that simply looks cool and unusual? Either way, they do provoke thought and curiosity (this review is evidence of that), and the Junya Watanabe-wearing hipsters it has for an audience probably donât mind dealing with a little artistic uncertainty as viewers. But if the choreographers of Splitstream are too immersed in their own world of abstractions and defiance to clearly communicate their message, if one exists at all, and make their work more than mere entertainment for a hipster crowd, then how will their art sustain itself and its meaning? Where do the Lost Children go from here? Want another viewpoint? Check out Kristy's review of Splitstream here. |
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