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Flash Review 1, 10-23: Faster, Dancemaker!
Thrill! Thrill!
Wynn's Collection Gathers No Moss
By Chris Dohse
Copyright 2001 Chris Dohse
NEW YORK --The riotous dancing of
Kevin Wynn's "Carry Me Like Water Reflecting Skin" (seen Sunday night at Danspace
Project at St. Mark's Church) barely squeezes into a single time and place. Overflowing
from the church's wooden floor, into its side aisles, upon its altar, 13 exquisite
dancers abandon themselves to Wynn's simultaneously silken and percussive choreography.
His incredibly varied phrases go everywhere at once, with occasional softness
and even humor, suggesting a universal humanism. Sometimes joyous, sometimes pugilistic
and flailing, accompanied by a magnificent score played live by Philip Hamilton,
the Wynn Collection wows a packed house with the pure zeal of moving.
When not a part of the action, cinematic,
static bodies wait on the outskirts of dancing, sometimes littered in heaps. Not
watching but always listening, awaiting the incitement of action. Further away,
in the shadows, dancers drop character and towel themselves, breathing deeply
between ecstatic bursts, like gymnasts between tumbles. Wynn casts a variety of
physiques, and his movement looks equally good on long limbs and short. After
their engines really heat up, the dancers add new moments to repeated phrases
and the space fills with the smell of sweat. The audience greets the ends of episodes
with incendiary applause.
In this intensely physical arena,
the individual body is often lost. Individual gesture is lost; action and flow
remain in the blur of Wynn's athleticism. Large chunks of group unison fracture
into intimate interactions, played against each other. Suddenly, as an accordion
plays, a woman is alone, with a welcome emotionality that adds specific personhood
-- something like a story emerges. A singer ululates -- the voice of the desert,
as I find myself thinking an odd tangential, "I hope these dancers all know how
beautiful they are and I hope their beauty is always offered like this, without
guile."
Philip Hamilton's musicians must
be noted, for their varied, rich, evocative landscapes. Elena Commendador and
Yuko Yamaneo's costumes, however, are unflattering. The fervor builds to end like
an improv jam gone wild. The crowd rushes to stand as Wynn, his musical collaborators
and his collection of exhausted dancers revel in our heartfelt gratitude.
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