Jack Anderson
Jody Sperling and Loïe
Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance
Baryshnikov Arts Center/Howard Gilman Performance Space, 450 West 37th
Street
May 10-12, 2007 (closed)
Reviewed by Jack Anderson, May 14, 2007
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| ''Jody Sperling and Loïe'' |
Jody Sperling has fun with dance history, in part because she takes it seriously. She has long been fascinated by Loïe Fuller, that early 20th-century pioneer of modern dance and multimedia theater, and has made several attempts to devise works employing Fuller's costuming and lighting effects. Two Fuller-inspired productions accounted for much of the magic of Sperling's latest program.
Both acknowledged the fascination with mists, fogs, dawns, twilights, and nebulous shapes arising out of shadows that made Fuller a choreographic exemplar of such artistic trends as Art Nouveau and Impressionism. And there were times when Fuller could seem a piece of living Tiffany glassware.
Sperling made these artistic alliances apparent in her new "Roman Sketches," choreographed for herself, Kelly Hayes, and Lisa Natoli to a piano suite of that name by the American Impressionist composer Charles Griffes. Sperling used the title of each of Griffes's pieces for each of her dances, and although she did not illustrate the music literally, sounds and movements harmonized in her choreographic suite, performed in a setting by Philip Drew of movable silver panels with reflecting surfaces.
The panels formed a wall in "The White Peacock," which began with Sperling seeming to swim across the floor in a diaphanous white costume. Rising, and looking very elegant as David Ferri's lighting brightened, she contemplated her reflections while rippling with pride, now very much a peacock, as that word might describe either a bird or a woman.
The panels were separated from one another and remained apart for the rest of the suite. In "Nightfall," two dancers, also in diaphanous white, wandered among them, creating multiple images until it became hard to tell which figures were beings in the flesh and which were reflections. All three dancers had wing-like poles attached to their arms and came and went like birds in "The Fountains of Acqua Paola" while the changing shades of Ferri's lighting suggested the passage of night and day. Then the dancers glided through "Clouds."
Finally, in "Night Winds," from "Three Tone Pictures," another Griffes suite, Sperling imitated one of Fuller's famous lighting effects and stood on a box while her costume swirled as light shining from beneath her changed hues until waves of colors and tides of fabrics engulfed her, making her body seem to dematerialize.
Much of "La Nuit," Sperling's Fulleresque solo from 2003 to John Cage's "In a Landscape," also occurred in a nocturnal realm, with Sperling enshrouded in a nunlike black costume. As she moved, she gradually removed bits of clothing, finally reducing her apparel to a bathing suit and sunglasses, as if the spirit she portrayed were now at a beach resort. But this pointless final comic touch diminished the solo's wonder.
Fortunately, most of Sperling's choreography earnestly tried to capture the spirit of Fuller's esthetics, and the theatrical effects were so persuasive that it came as something of a surprise to realize that Fuller's dance technique, at least as interpreted by Sperling, involved little more than walks, runs, and little turning steps. From such kinetic simplicity, enchantment was born.
Two other dances suggested the range of Sperling's historical
interests. In "A Leg Up," the first segment of a work-in-progress
called "More Cheap Tricks," with music by Quentin Chiappetta,
Emily Lutin, Andrea Skurr, and Chriselle Tidrick became chorus girls whose
acrobatic kick routines were interrupted by the sudden entrance of David
Altman in an old-fashioned bathing suit. Constant turns in Sperling's
solo "Hoop Act" set large hula hoops revolving about her to
music by Manfred Hubler and Siegfried Schwab. These evocations of brash
old-fashioned music-hall entertainments paid tribute to the fun of stunts.
Yet Sperling is more convincing when she immerses herself in Art Nouveau
iridescence.
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