Dancers slow down Los Angeles
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SUSAN KIM |
Hurrah!! “Slow Dancing” has at last made its way (from New York) to Los Angeles. Especially after reading Matt’s first ever blog interview with David Michalek, I’ve been anxiously counting down the months, weeks and days until the screens completed their 3,000-mile trek closer to moi. (Pardon the excessive drama; we’ll blame the late hour, shall we?)
All drama aside, though, the exhibit is truly amazing and breathtakingly beautiful. The Los Angeles display is structured slightly differently than it had been in New York; we’ve two less screens that don’t hang from the theaters’ facades but that, together, encompass the fountains sitting in the center of the Music Center. Especially after (and, even, as!) the sun goes down, the spectacle is truly a sight to behold.
Janie Taylor stops a passing crowd.
Probably what surprised me most was the (intentionally?) clever juxtaposition of the images. At one point, Wendy Whelan and Omayra Amaya moved through a port de bras so similar and so in synch with each other that it seemed as though they had choreographed the segment.
Big screen role model? A passerby apparently thought so.
I might be alone in thinking this–it certainly wouldn’t be the first time!–but I found it oddly discomforting and strangely, well, weird to see dancers magnified on such monstrous screens. I’m a little old-fashioned, I suppose: I love that dance, traditionally at least, and its beauty relies solely on the size of the dancer’s movement (and not on the dancer’s (generally smaller) size or build) and on the power of projecting of such movement (and not on the power of projection tools), to deepen and/or strengthen the impact of his/her performance.
Desmond: He’s ready to take over Los Angeles. 
Until the 26th, you know where I’ll be!
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