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2, 3-6: Celebrating Life By Susan Yung
Chris DC Ramos and his company, Ramos Dance, in their program seen Saturday at the Merce Cunningham Studio entitled "Heads Up," not only remind us to celebrate life and take nothing for granted, they show us how to do it. Ramos's choreography is immensely visceral, at times gymnastic, yet always fluid and imbued with an elegant line personified in the dancing of the company's assistant director, Ricky Santiago. The program consisted of six dances set to a wide range of songs, showing off Ramos's sly musicality, plus two sung numbers including one with Ramos engaging the singer in antics. Frequently, the serendipity of human relationships is explored, running the gamut from marital commitment in "Do I·" (1999), which featured a crisp projected church window and rosette around which the dancers moved, to "Fore Sum" (1999), which seemed to address the subtexts that course like underground streams through every relationship. The latter piece was performed to a ubiquitous Satie gymnopedie, whose treacly pathos was tempered with an overlaid vocalise track. It was brightly danced by Ramos, Santiago, Roanne Flores and Karen Francesca Silvano, and featured turns with spiraling arms, legs as bridges and inventive lifts. Throughout Ramos's oeuvre, partner work plays a key role. It can be as simple as a ballroom dance or as complex as a circus balancing act. In "Nights Passing" (1997), Santiago and Omagbitse Omagbemi are well-matched physically and psychologically; it is one of the strongest works of the evening, demonstrating some of this clever partnering with theatrical flair and film noir overtones. Omagbemi has a most expressive torso and shoulder carriage, and her back seems to speak its own clear language. "Incierto Conexion," to music by Astor Piazzolla, featured a trio (Flores, Santiago, and Jeff Cox) taking turns partnering one another; Ramos wisely chose to steer away from a literal interpretation of the tango, instead lacing the smoky passages of movement with personal touches such as fluttering hands and phantom partners. "Silent/Listen" (1999), an assessment of the state of AIDS and the dim glow of promise by today's protease inhibitor drug cocktails, featured Ramos in a witty dance in which he used pill containers as maracas while Alison Langerak sang, to great effect and in doctor's garb, medically adapted excerpts from Bizet's "Carmen." A topical hazard in treatments of social or political issues, the piece was at times heavy-handed (repetitious voiceovers and a bar scene), but also ran to the poignant and funny, and was ultimately endearing. The final work on the program, "Heads Up" (2000), a premiere, was a tight, energetic suite of shorter duets, solos and groups to amazing woodwind music with a distinctive medieval flavor, by Louis Hardin (Moondog). Flores, who is developing into an impressive mature stage presence, anchored the whirling kinetics of the piece. The musical interludes performed by the silken-voiced Langerak were Gershwin's "But Not for Me," with Marc Rosenthal on guitar and Ramos playing a physical foil, and Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You." Costumes were by Uki Kittaka and Ramos; lighting was by Christopher Brown. |
