We must watch carefully to know

On the late evening of September 18th, I had the pleasure of witnessing Julia Antinozzi’s new work: “Time Piece,” a mostly independently-produced evening-length work staged at PAGEANT in Brooklyn. This humble theater’s programming typically offers a range of dance and performance artists from seasoned artists to emerging, usually making work in the avant-garde tradition. This showing was at 10PM due to high ticket demand—being above a nail salon in Brooklyn at an oversold show past bedtime felt kind of punk and fun. The lights went out briefly and the showing was under way.

Suddenly lights came up, and dancers were spread across the stage. A few of them were facing their backs to us, displaying elegant costumes. They were designed by Reid Bartelme, a costume designer who works often with established choreographers in concert dance. The creamy colors and satin finishes had an angelic quality. Different from a more traditional theatrical stage, this room was far deeper than it was wide. Artists at Pageant usually decide on a spatial orientation of their choosing. The Pageant audience who is often placed in the round or three-quarter seating was pushed up against one of the walls of the space allowing only a frontal view of the performers. I had seen this seating orientation at pageant before, but it seemed even more tunnel-like this time.

From the moment we first saw forms in the light, the placement of the four dancers boldly emphasized the depth in which they were frozen. Correction: there were in fact four and a half dancers in view—halfway to the back of the room, the bottom half of a dancer’s body extended lifelessly from the only doorway of the space (where audience members entered not 30 minutes ago). The legs were a simple yet striking focal point. Farthest in the background, Stuart Singer stood in first position, also showing only the back of his costume to the audience. The two furthest downstage dancers began to move after an extended stillness and the formal language that would last throughout the piece was introduced. Dancers demonstrated shapes with balletic posture, carefully raising limbs through space and holding them in picturesque positions. Julia’s curiosity was not only found in the classical form and function of the individual body, but also in bodies in relationship to each other in time and space. There was a gracefulness in the costumes but an eerie intensity to the way that the movements were timed and repeated. The two performers found moments of togetherness but mostly remained in their very poised solo study.

I continue using this term “form.” When one thinks of formalism in choreography, what comes to mind? Ballet? Devotion to a technique? Architectural lines and logical shapes resulting in satisfaction? If you think of formalism in contemporary art, you may find yourself thinking of post-gestural abstract painters. But Julia’s piece was not simple. And neither is formal art. Was Mondrian promoting a new set of aesthetic values? Or was he reducing the language of painting to a very limited vocabulary in order to clarify his vision? Either way there is explicit intention. The antithesis of a formalist approach to art could be identified as emotional art; art that acknowledges what is happening in the artist’s inner life at the time the work is made. Who is identifying themselves as a “formalist” in the current dance scene of New York City? However Antinozzi identifies, there is no doubt that, as a dancer myself watching, this was a confection for the eye. I wondered where else this piece would go? Back to a surreal dream scene like the one we saw in the opening image? Or will it continue to dive deeper in form?

As the dance proceeded, the dueters in white slowed and finished, and two soloists emerged. Their movements took on a more expressive, individual style than those of the dueters. These are subtle but noticeable departures from the initial movement aesthetics. These shifts in tone continue in Singer’s solo movements. Recall that he was the dancer whose statuesque form was planted furthest upstage in the opening tableau, foreshadowing his grandiose presence throughout the piece. What made it so grand were his even more reactive and spontaneous, yet undoubtedly controlled, uses of time and dynamics. The trickster.

Now I must finally address the elephant in the room: the legs sticking out from the doorway at the beginning of the piece were none other than Leah Fournier’s. Her glossy black costume and wet hair struck me as weird and cool. She crawled slowly to her position on stage, as if she were stuck in tar and then freed. There was a cold feeling to this moment of pedestrian crawling, tight and intentional while also being a lot more grounded, slow, and animal-like than any other performer. What were these humanistic movements intended to do? She and Singer shared weight during a duet that followed; when they depended on each other, there was risk, trust. Singer displayed emotion by stepping forward with a presentational arm gesture, only to drop out of the form as if the performance were done. Work that combines these contemporary and classical languages can help us to form a deeper understanding of what a classical dance language can do. What are the limits of movement simply for the sake of movement? And when the movements are recognizable? We must watch carefully to know.

I could tell the audience was captivated by the beauty, but what did they think of these gritty characters, like Singer and Fournier? Was I correct that their role was to serve as an intervention, to disrupt the formalist ideals that the work was taking on? Or was their storyline the main part of the work to be considered, and the classical-feeling duets and solos were merely peripheral? The work felt serious, and so did the question of form versus emotion. Makes sense. I left with the impression that characterizing Julia as a formalist may in fact be appropriate, but that is not a diminutive term. When an artist manipulates the interaction between classical and modern ideas, they do not effectively abandon their commitment to a classical point of view. The abundant “look what we can do” style of dance phrasing is juxtaposed with the sparing use of humanistic expression, a clever method of keeping the audience searching for meaning and creating a sense of suspense. The piece ended with a beautiful solo by Paulina Meneses. She re-emerged, changed into a red variation of the white costume she wore during the beginning duet. What came next pushed against the categorization that felt appropriate for the beginning duet. The dancer’s beautiful technique was used to invent original movements. A spinning motif that was off balance, elastic, and momentous was repeated; it felt totally original. For the first time, the piece fully embodied a middle ground between the signature formulaic aesthetics and organic gestural expressions.