State of Play wrapped up its ambitious dance festival this weekend at ODC Theater, arguably the best season of its 12 years. With its smartly curated performances, the multilayered festival is the stellar work of ODC’s Theater Creative Director Chloë L. Zimberg and resident curator Maurya Kerr, together, with the support of Counterpulse and the San Francisco Ballet, which generously supported with resources and rehearsal spaces. The four-day extravaganza presented full-length works, shorter works, works-in-process, and several world premieres in the form of solos, duets, and full-up ensembles. Also included were panel discussions, dance workshops, and a big-old fundraising party called Revelry. The impact of this festival on the thriving Bay Area dance scene is huge; everyone gets a burst of inspiration.
One of five performances on Saturday was Pei-Ling Kao’s solo, “Palimpsest Corpus” (world premiere.) This full-length work continues her exploration of “ethnicity, people of color, and criticism in dance, addressing postcolonial bodies in postmodern dance.” The performance is the layered accumulation of her former dances within “The Dancing Body Through The Lens of Postcolonialism,” in which ten known choreographers created short solos for her over four years.
These contributions fed Kao’s inquiry: Can her Taiwanese-born dancer’s body “be colonized by choreographic intentions?” If her dancing body is trained in modern/postmodern dance styles, how is the “postcolonial body identified on an individual level?”
While the “Palimpsest Corpus” backstory may seem heady, the performance is not. Kao’s sincerity, embodied presence, and distilled simplicity made her piece one of the evening’s sophisticated and understated performances. Her work shows a refinement of movement and subtlety of dance vocabulary, also reflected in her natural aesthetic. Kao’s elegant stylistic integration extends to her musicians, Jorge Bachmann and Kevin Corcoran, who created the live minimalist ambient score, and to the spare video clips of her dancing the previously choreographed solos while she danced downstage of them.
Initially, Kao spoke a phrase or two in Taiwanese or English as she placed small cards on the stage, creating a shape on the floor (Taiwan?) while saying things like, “You can’t understand dance, or me by asking questions.” Her humor is sparse but effective, like spice thrown in a stir-fry, simple and measured, as when Taiwanese muzak interrupted the seriousness of her inquiry, transporting the dance to a shopping mall atmosphere. Or when chatting with the musicians, opening beer cans for them, and taking a swig.
There is never excess in “Palimpsest Corpus,” but there is also nothing held back. Kao has a unique way of being the center of attention as a soloist without calling undue attention to herself. Instead, she gives everything and makes everything about the dance.
“Chimera” (world premiere)—with acclaimed dancers, David Harvey and Babatunji—is a steamy, erotic, over-indulgent puppy pile, power play, and sensual contortion between two stunning male dancers and longtime friends. Who, from interweaving their bodies, create a phantasmagoric Frankenstein of parts, limbs, heads, or misplaced arms. Like an octopus with a brain in each of its limbs, these parts tell their own story and have their own emotional needs as dancers go from hoodies on to hoodies off, t-shirts on, t-shirts off, giving a glimpse of their chiseled physiques, teasing, seducing, and playing with very mutable boundaries, their history and the nature of relationships.
Harvey begins in boxer shorts, submissively crawling on his knees across the stage to Babatunji’s extended hand, nuzzles it, smells it, longs for it…suggesting role play, a power exchange before encouraging Babatunji to smack Harvey’s hand against Harvey’s own forehead, as if to say, “Harder. harder!” Or, “Free me. Wake me up.” as he repeats the action several times. Is his longing a vain desire, unrealistic, wild, as foolish as Icarus’s wings? Are these terms not used to describe the word chimera, which also means a monster made from disparate parts? Harvey’s handsome face is transparent and vulnerable, communicating an appetite for intimacy, a closeness that exceeds physicality, and one that he seems to share with Babatunji—trusting their bodies and souls to each other’s catch, embrace and, on occasion, a squish.
Between segments, whimsical block print-like images float down or sail across the screen behind them. The images look like the Milagros made by silversmiths of dismembered heads, arms, and legs that clump together into piles or transform into mix-matched creatures.
In one segment, they stand together on a chair downstage, limiting their movements and balance as if they are the two serpents intertwining on the Rod of Asclepius. They are two halves that can’t exist without the other, like the black and white shapes that make the yin/yang symbol. In the next, they soar across the stage, synchronized into expansive glides and slides, arms extended. They seem made for each other, a projection of each other, transformed by the morphing inherent in relationships. Hopefully, more collaborations between these two fine dancers are in the mix.
Bryan Arias’ “The Broken Glass” premiered during SFDanceworks’ 6th season (2023) after an earlier piecemeal start through COVID and Zooming with an ensemble of five excellent, ready-to-burst-out-of-the-gate dancers. Arias added additional choreography and minutes for State of Play, making this onslaught of movement a full-length work. His inspiration came from his father’s terminal illness in Puerto Rico and Arias’ return to his home country from Switzerland.
The cascade of movement and personal storytelling is told through an abstract narrative as a slew of solos and rapid pairings enter and quickly exit. One by one, dancers experience a deflation of movement, a collapse, perhaps from illness, death, or sorrow. But before their heads hit the floor, it is caught in the nick of time by another dancer, who rushes across the stage to rescue them. And then they exit as quickly as they arrived, leaving the depressed with the dignity of autonomy.
Puerto Rican folkloric masks add another realm to this river of movement and the dancers’ shapes. The masks are both a cultural reference and a mythical element, contrasting the bleak street-like lighting (Jim French) under which they dance. Strumming these montages together is the acoustic guitar of José Feliciano’s recording, “Live 1967,” whose clarity of vocals matches the dancers’ precision and passion. Feliciano’s music was Arias’ father’s favorite and was the background of Arias’ childhood. “The Broken Glass” is an exuberant tribute to loss, grief, and the joy of living.
Kudos to the top-knoch ensemble: Lani Yamanaka, Emily Hansel, Nicholas Korkos, Isaac Bates-Vinueza, and Chris Bloom.
David e. Moreno
