Dance Review
Attraction, Revulsion and Discussion
Tiffany Mills Dance Company at Brooklyn Academy of Music
By GIA KOURLAS
Published: June 4, 2013
In “Berries and Bulls,” a premiere by the choreographer Tiffany Mills,
one side of the stage features towers of stacked paper and books. The
dancer Jeffrey Duval, with boyish concentration — though he is well into
manhood — sits in front of them and exactingly folds a paper airplane,
pressing his index finger down hard on the surface to make perfect
creases. He reclines on his back and rests the airplane on his chest.
It’s not the smoothest of takeoffs.
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Tiffany Mills Company Emily Pope-Blackman and Kevin Ho at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
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Paper airplanes are a common sight throughout this hourlong
dance-theater work, seen on Friday at the Fishman Space at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music. It was preceded by a shorter piece, “The Feast (Part
1),” which featured duets in which Ms. Mills’s penchant for the push and
pull of contact improvisation was deeply felt.
Ms. Mills is a choreographer who relies on text and partnering to
explore human relationships. Along with Mr. Duval, “Berries and Bulls”
features Kevin Ho, Emily Pope-Blackman and Petra van Noort, as well as
an ensemble of 10 others, with whom Ms. Mills looks at the line between
attraction and revulsion through the contact of bodies. We don’t only
see that point being made; we also hear it, repeatedly.
“Does it matter if I touch you?” Mr. Duval asks Ms. Pope-Blackman.
“Absolutely,” she replies. “Touch always matters.”
But some scenarios in “Berries and Bulls,” which has dramaturgy by Peter
Petralia, also examine the choreographic process. When Mr. Duval and
Mr. Ho lie on their backs for an extended period, Ms. van Noort tries to
coax them up. “Come on, guys — this is supposed to be a performance and
not a sleepover,” she says. “Can we do something a little bit more
animated?”
It’s a dangerous line to insert into such a tedious work, where the
subject matter, which hints at the freedom and danger of taking flight,
slips into melodrama, with couples bickering. The dancers, with thin
voices and self-conscious delivery, taunt one another with sarcasm, all
the while pulling, poking and prodding one another’s bodies. The
movement isn’t much, but it also has little chance to develop: time and
again, the chatter drowns it out.
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