Reading in Future Perfect
Posted by Tony Schultz
Last night I went to see Chris Elam’s Misnomer Dance Theater and Keigwin + Company at NYU’s Skirball Center with our friend Tonya Plank. The two companies were well paired and together made an inspired presentation.
I met Chris Elam back in November of 2006 at a rehearsal of Dancing with Robots at Lemurplex. The details of this project, directed by fellow dance technologist Marlon Barios Solano, can be seen here on Marlon’s blog unstablelandscape.net/blog. I was impressed by Chris’ strength and vocabulary of movement. While talking, Chris communicated his interest in using blogs to interact with audiences. I told Chris about the gospel of Doug Fox and urged him to contact Doug.
Last night was the first time I have seen Misnomer perform. I must admit, I am partial to strangeness and Chris Elam is clearly adept in its manifestation. Future Perfect was danced by Brynne Billingsley, Jen Hasmer, Coco Karol and Luke Wiley with occasional appearances by Chris Elam. The lighting was designed by Burke Wilmore while Sarah McMillan and Lesley Wolf fashioned the costumes. The dance includes some clear landmarks that sketch a narrative structure: a floating ball, a repeated leg extension with foot-in-hand, the intermittent sound of a whirling breeze, etc. Despite the presence of these sign posts the dance is sufficiently abstract that it requires active participation on part of the viewer to aid in the structuring the dance’s reading. To use the language of Roland Barthes (care of Randy Martin), the reader is made into “a producer of the text”. I enjoy this responsibility and am happy to write it into the record. I recommend seeing the Saturday performance to anyone else who enjoys this type of active viewership.
I wonder what curiosities Chris Elam will have produced in the future.
