From Whim W’Him, Intercourse Kittens and Sex Kills
The selling point of three new works from Olivier Wever’s Whim W’Him party team filled the Intiman Theatre on a night whenever thawing heaps of slush in Seattle streets mounted to your knees. Boots weren’t strictly a fashion option. “Cast the very first Rock in Twenty Twelve” came with plenty of temperature of their very very very own, though.
Two reduced works, La Langue de l’amour and Flower Festival, led as much as the night’s major showcase, thrOwn, but that is not to imply they weren’t as appreciatively gotten. As a passive-aggressive hint of some kind if you’re at the theatre as a couple, you have to be careful how loudly you clap for the wickedly titled La Langue de l’amour, in case your partner takes it.
A solo en pointe tease by Chalnessa Eames in a deranged-pixie wig, Langue employs pantomime and, in this context, the not-so-sublimated eroticism associated with the allegro motion of the Domenico Scarlatti harpsichord sonata as Wevers wrings every glistening fall of sex appeal from the ballerina’s precision that is formala gauzy wisp of costume by Christine Joly de Lotbiniиre helps with that work). Typically, ballet prevents conjuring up the awe that is illicit whenever Eames bends and looks straight straight straight back through her feet during the market. Through charade, she makes a pretty determined, detail by detail proposition of delights—Oh my, whipped cream?—in the offing in the event that item of desire (a limelight selected some body when you look at the market) calls her. Later on, after thrOwn, it’ll appear impressive that the exact same individual danced both in.
After Wevers’ reinterpreted Flower Festival, however, individuals rocketed from their seats to applaud. All of the terms to spell it out what Wevers has been doing right here must certanly be French and alive to tones of nuance; Bournonville’s perky-footed peasant courtship provides solution to two males in matches (Andrew Bartee and Lucien Postlewaite in Mark Zappone’s sharp-looking costumes) whom take part in some sort of dominance display. The suits in change cave in to exercise shorts due to the fact guys, getting severe, bring their A-game.
You know the office or gym politics that are relevant if you don’t know the Bournonville, no worries. A treat (at one point, Postlewaite draws his necktie across the back of his neck like a bow, in time with the strings in Edvard Helsted’s music) if you do, Wevers’ choreography for neckties—instead of ribbons—is. Bartee’s bright red socks, contrasting with Postlewaite’s Ben-Stiller-like flexing, appear to draw a mischievous-macho axis between the 2, accounting for steadily growing misapprehension, as Bartee’s advances, often by petit pas, leads to him being dragged, by the scruff of his coat, returning to their seat.
That’s all that you can simply take in the dance instead if you choose to account for the psychodrama somehow, of course—Wevers fills your eyes with invention enough. Where in ballet, hands might bow to produce an O of entry, right right right here suit coats are shrugged away from before the sleeves, generally there is just a physically bounded group to step into or through. Postlewaite threads their arm between Bartee’s as well as their coat, twisting it—and making Bartee revolve—as if it is a mechanism that is wind-up. The comedy never ever completes, Wevers shows, but there’s feeling, too: slim, angular Bartee, expanding a leg behind himself, drapes his arms backwards, since well, wrists bent downward—he’s such as the prow of the ship, available to whatever comes.
After which there’s thrOwn.
this program records by Victoria Farr Brown teach you that thrOwn makes use of the imagery of public stoning to explore cruelty that is“righteous” and complicity (ushers give fully out rocks to help you store prior to the party begins). The end result has reached times eerie, gorgeous, and disjunctive, featuring strapped costumes and full-length flasher’scoat/judge’s robes from de Lotbiniиre, a desert that is swirling of and backdrop from musician Steve Jensen, and lighting both stark and caressing from Michael Mazzola.
It starts with a marriage, a female (Chalnessa Eames) marrying a guy (Andrew Bartee), in a marriage that is arranged if you take the tone of Tory Peil’s grasp on both as proof of one thing. The bond is broken by a lover (Lucien Postlewaite, looking every inch the dark, handsome stranger), who sweeps Eames away in a passionate embrace as they’re proceeding off, hand in hand. Wevers’ choreography is suggestive and indirect right right right here, implying Eames’ shy passion by having a foot sneaking up to stroke the size of a calf. Postlewaite holds Eames, taut, horizontal, like a musical instrument to be sounded.
A number of Wevers’ most choreography that is striking through the ambivalence with which he freights an intimate pas de deux, and through the willingness of his dancers to behave that out—Postlewaite and Eames twine limbs as if their bones were pickled. But at the things I registered since the orgasm of these lovemaking, the contact that is actual see has returned to right straight right back, maybe maybe not in person. (“Don’t indulge,” instructed Wevers in rehearsal, relating to this moment.) And both Eames and Peil dance with their locks down, veiling their faces.
The event discovered , the girl is jailed in a banned field of light, and Wevers’ post-modernly zooms out to America, our cowboy romance with firearms, and history of money punishments, including hangings. The long coats are now dusters, and imaginary 10-gallon caps are doffed, all executions done as brightly as though Oklahoma! had opted noir. This jaunt towards the governmental from the personal was jarring, and I also wondered in the beginning if it worked, despite the fact that I understood Wevers’ intent.
Inside her cellular, Eames has just her memory-fantasy of her affair; she’s rejoined by Postlewaite, and imagines operating away in a spasm of wild freedom, but Postlewaite and Jim Kent, Peil, and Bartee, will quickly embody her floggers and killers. Wevers has got the dancers perform numerous functions without always indicating whenever a change occurs, to make sure you feel jarred by the known undeniable fact that Peil, who was simply simply drawing her brow tenderly, sorrowfully over the straight back of Eames’ shoulders, is currently whipping her coating to your flooring having a break to suggest Eames’ beating.
A post-stoning coda formally reacted to this center, “America,” section in a means that incorporated just what felt initially such as for instance a detour. You notice the ensemble erupt, Eames covered in stones, just as if both celebrating an success and wanting to get rid of duty you realize that however the costumes for this drama may vary, in the end, it’s because the righteous participants hope not to be recognized for it, and. Nevertheless, we can’t help convinced that Wevers has attempted to encompass a lot of in too brief a time–if you don’t spend unique awareness of this program notes, i do believe you’d be hard-pressed to check out the jump-cut storyline, and I also stay uncertain of just how to praise Jim Kent’s exact, fluid dancing for the reason that I became never ever yes whom he had been allowed to be.