Show Business
November 28, 2001
by Julia Holland

"First Weekends-New Dance and Discussion"

Three choreographers perform their work in an intimate setting for a group of about 50 or so people, and after, sit around discussing their work with audience and their dancers. The Gowanus Arts Exchange is the ideal venue for their First Weekends-New Dance and Discussion, due in part to Gowanus’ Executive Director Marya Warshaw’s strength in choosing interesting choreographers. She also sets the tone for the audience and the performers to interact casually as she moderates the post-performance discussion. Shannon Hummel, Sharon Mansur and Liam Clancy are the featured choreographers to October’s First Weekends.

Shannon Hummel’s choreography graces the stage with a bit of her small-town growing up experience in “Down a Small Road.” Ms. Hummel and her company members Vanessa Adato, Pele Bauch, Donna Costello introduce themselves to the audience with stumbling falls followed by hysterical cackling and then a sharp switch to painful expressions, their bodies contorting with intense emotions. Their movements are gestural, interspersed with the grating laughs and the slaps of falling bodies on the floor. Bluegrass music accompanies them, adding a rural tone to the absurdity of the movement sequences. In the second section, dancers repeat meat packing assembly line movements, first in regular tempo, and then in an increasingly faster, more frenetic pace. The step-by-step motions become a fascinating blur, a dance in which torsos and arms twist, swiveling back and forth. The performers drop to the ground in a series of plank jumps to the sides, with the sounds and the precision of military exercise. Ms. Hummel brings the piece to a close working at the assembly line once again. This time, however, her breath audibly catches her after each repetitive motion, slowing her down and emphasizing the individual sequences of movement.