`Last Dance' A Powerful Spin. - Review - dance review

Dance Magazine, August, 2001 by Rita Felciano

`LAST DANCE' A POWERFUL SPIN

JUNE WATANABE IN COMPANY YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS FORUM SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA APRIL 27, 2001

June Watanabe's tribute to Americans of Japanese ancestry who were herded off into internment camps during World War II is restrained, nuanced, and intelligent. It also boasts some excellent collaborators. What it does not have is an ensemble skilled enough in conveying focus and power through simple, often pedestrian movement.

In 5/15/45--the last dance, Watanabe attempts to capture memories half forgotten and impressions that linger since the Los Angeles native and her family were sent to the Hart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming (the title of the piece refers to the date of a dance that was held on the eve of their release from camp). This is not an angry political piece shouting at the injustice of what happened to Japanese Americans. Watanabe's approach is quiet, dignified, and reserved, but it makes its point of commemorating what she calls "what man does to man" all the more effectively.

The piece is structured in three parts: an ensemble section with Watanabe and Frank Shawl as the people in search of memories, a duet for these two dancers, and a community dance that grows out of the final night's celebration. Rooted in a sense of isolation and mournfulness without a speck of sentimentality, the work also acknowledges ordinary activities that include playing. The perspective often seems like a child's--looking about in bewilderment, staring into space full of questions, enduring silences that need to be broken. People rarely touch, movement is restricted and fragmentary, sometimes abrupt. Watanabe's penchant for simplicity works best in the ensemble's sections.

Ray Wang contributed photographic images of the group walking toward the camp, suitcases in hand, turning their heads and leaning back while looking up as if expecting answers from above, and standing or sitting absolutely motionless. There is power in stillness--whether it's absence of sound or motion--and Watanabe uses it effectively.

The choreography for the first section's six dancers appears to allow for a certain amount of improvisation, but mostly consists of small segments of non-narrative and recognizable movement--baseball slides, people leaning on each other, skipping games--that float up, memory-like, to Watanabe and Frank Anderson's consciousness as they slowly and carefully circle the "camp," trying to capture something that once was. Despite Watanabe's attempt to periodically pull this sea of information together--through unisons, duets, and group focal points--this section probably needs rethinking. Or dancers more deeply skilled in conveying focus and a sense of theatrical tension without having the benefit of clear trajectories.

5/14/45's collaborators beautifully support Watanabe's concept for the piece. Alexander Nichols, a truly gifted light and set designer, constructed a series of light towers with both fluorescent and incandescent lights that blinded even as they stared down at the camp. Sandra Woodall dressed the women in shades of red; Watanabe is in white--the traditional color of mourning in Japan. Alvin Curran's simple but effective score was based on drones, buzzers, sirens, and collaged echoes of human sounds--children's voices, music for brass. Bandleader George Yoshida (his J-town Big Band played for the evening's closing community dance) provided the narration for Watanabe and Anderson's hauntingly floating central duet--simple in vocabulary, complex in emotions.