Doug Varone and Dancers. - The Bottomland - dance review

Dance Magazine, April, 2003 by Gus Solomons, Jr

The Ohio Theatre
New York, New York
December 4-22, 2002

Few choreographers dare to be as versatile as Doug Varone and pull it off so successfully. He challenges himself to invent movement to enhance expression in many dance-theater milieus. His works range from the abstract (Rise) to the expressionistic (Force Majeure). He choreographed and staged a musical, Triumph of Love, on Broadway in 1997, as well as one of three ballets in the upcoming Patrick Swayze film Without A Word, and Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens.

Now Varone has created and directed The Bottomland, an evening-length dance melodrama, inspired by his visit to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. In "Part I: Songs That Tell a Story," the eight cast members embody local denizens, dressed in threadbare rural clothes by extravagantly versatile costume designer Liz Prince. The dancers perform the same choreography in, and in front of, a projected film set on location in Kentucky, which Varone conceived and Rob Draper and Vincent Gancie photographed.

VARONE SKILLFULLY WEAVES A SEAMLESS INTERPLAY BETWEEN LIVE AND FILMED DANCING TO ESTABLISH THE CHARACTERS' EXTERIOR SELVES. The live dancers perform alongside their own images on film, in unison or in canon or counterpoint. The film, projected across the entire upstage wall, intensifies the sense of place and magnifies the dancers' expressions, so we quickly know them intimately. At times the scale of the onscreen figures matches that of the live ones, which appears to double the population of the piece.

Accompanied by country songs by Patty Loveless, the characters sprang vividly to life. Natalie Desch, Faye Driscoll, and Adriane Fang lip-synched Loveless's lyrics on film; live, they pretended to watch Daniel Charon's supplications. Driscoll and John Beasant III sat side by side (live and on film), looking like a Grant Wood painting doubled. A romance developed between two reticent people through facial contortions and small gestures, which finally blossomed into a huge, close-up, mutual caress that almost became a kiss.

"Part II: As Told at Night, When the Air Is a Different Color" exposed the darker psychological interiors of the characters with several plot lines: "Other woman" (Desch) destroys the longtime relationship between husband and wife (Larry Hahn and Nina Watt); Beasant grieves over a lost lover (Driscoll) and another woman (Catherine Miller) tries vainly to console him.

The chief subplot concerned the bigotry of small minds: White townsmen (Charon, Beasant, Hahn) target an Asian couple (Eddie Taketa and Adriane Fang), after they befriend the abandoned Watt. Tension builds during a vicious storm, created by Jane Cox's remarkable lighting, a grid of naked bulbs that plummeted down over the dancers' heads, and Gaetan Leboeuf's score. The whites torment and humiliate the Asian pair, ultimately forcing Taketa to wear a dress and stripping Fang naked.

Varone masters all the elements of theater, and his extremely talented cast inhabits its characters believably. His works are widely accessible without losing artistic integrity--no mean feat in an age of competition with MTV and HBO. With some tightening, the fifty-minute second part will pack an even more intense punch. Both Varone's modern dance craft and the social resonance of his psychological investigation give you a lot to experience in the moment of performance, and a lot to think about afterward.