Dancing on the Edge

Last night I went to Meredith Kalaman dancing in "How to Become a Star".  Some of you remember her dancing at our school in "The Lost Art of Girl Guiding" which was terrific.  This is just as terrific, but quite different from the first piece.  I imagined it would be about how so many people these days see fame as something to aspire to.  (Why would you want to have people recognize you when you're schlepping out to the grocery store in your sweatpants with your hair in a ponytail?)  But it was about how we deal with our inevitable death, which is a subject of interest to me these days, because of my venerable age!  She started out with a series of tableaus that depicted the stages of grief -- it was so dramatic and at the end of the tableaus, she looked out at us, accepting us, just like she accepted her fate.  The "story" (if a dance has a story -- I really don't see enough dance to feel comfortable with the language I'm using to describe it) traces the mythology of the constellations, particularly Andromeda and Cassiopeia, through to more personal ideas about our memory and our longing to be remembered after we're gone.  It was lovely -- Meredith is so strong and open and luminous and I admire her willingness to put her ideas into physical form and share them with us.  There was a scene which mystified me while I was watching, where she was underwater and I think all of us in the audience felt like we were underwater as well.

This is part of "Dancing on the Edge" which continues to July 13.  There were two other dances on the program:  "remember when" by the plastic orchid factory, and "The Righteous Floater".  They were both very different from Meredith's performance -- "remember when" was very cerebral and used cameras and text in interesting and provocative ways -- the two women in the dance had this great sequence where they began dancing together in a very tender way, but eventually became combative, forcing each other across the stage and using the same movements to suggest conflict as opposed to nurturing.  "The Righteous Floater" begins with a man wearing only underpants, knee braces and shoes and socks, standing with his back to the audience, while the other man hangs out laundry.  It was funny, at times, and extremely physical -- it reminded me of two little boys and how physical their play can be.  What a contrast to Meredith's performance!

I really recommend the festival if you're looking for something that might take you out of your comfort zone.  As I said, we don't see nearly enough dance and it communicates ideas to us in a way that opens us up to a new world -- one without so many of the words we use to hide behind!  The "Dancing on the Edge" festival continues all over the city until July 13.