Yoshiko Chuma & the School of Hard Knocks, Playhouse 91, December 9-10, 1995

Dance Magazine, March, 1996 by Nancy Dalva

PLAYHOUSE 91 DECEMBER 9-10, 1995 REVIEWED BY NANCY DALVA

Where is it coming from, this wave of meaningful gloom that is washing over postmodernism, threatening to drown us in vague portent, vaguer narrative, and puzzling symbols? I suspect the wellsprings of doom are situated somewhere in Wuppertal, home of Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater. Maybe the wild success of Robert Wilson and the smaller success of Martha Clarke also have something to do with the mise-en-scenario bandwagon, and maybe the constant grim news from Bosnia has affected dancemakers. Whatever you want to call this category of work (retromodernism?), here it is, looking for all the world as if Anna Sokolow had wafted over a generation of choreographers, sprinkling moody dust.

Take, as example, a recent bill (presented under the aegis of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project): Yoshiko Chuma & the School of Hard Knocks, David Dorfman, and Vicky Shick, in collaboration and separately. A joint work, Three Stories (The Hitchhike Project), comprised the second half of their program. In this premiere (concept and direction by Chuma, choreography by all), each dancer performed with a chair in a separate spotlight. There was a lot of original sound and music by Robert Een, and lots of dramatic lighting by Pat Dignan. From time to time, one of the three broke out of the despairing-solo mode and entered the space of another, to little import. The work looked a lot as if they had simply decided to perform unrelated movement simultaneously, with Shick meticulous and articulate, Dorfman diving over and around, and Chuma sitting.

Their solo efforts had more impact. Chuma's Cello (1995) was a duet for herself and Een, in which they struggled for possession of his cello as he tried to play it. Chuma appeared at times to be a willful muse, at times a willful child, all dressed up in a long white party dress and shiny black shoes. Dorfman premiered Brace, in which he wore a sort of monk's garb-cum-folk outfit and danced while playing a small accordion strapped to his chest. This trick--the dancer providing his own musical accompaniment--interested Dorfman a good deal more then it did me. He is no longer at the peak of his dance powers, and playing the instrument (none too well) diffuses his energy. The piece was quite mournful, but one wasn't sure why, and one didn't find out.

Shick opened the whole affair with another premiere. Wrapped up in some improbable Issey Miyake-looking pajamas with a huge, crumpled doughnut of fabric slung around her hips, Shick looked radiant, in her quiet way. Her small, finely calibrated movements and recoveries accumulated with every repetition, her precision isolations giving way to greater swaths of swinging motions and jumps. Her almost preternatural alertness was her only dramatic effect, but the title of the piece, Slow Fears, and its taped narration suggested unpleasant, and then horrible, events. (The musical part of the score was from La Boheme, which, of course, tells a story all its own.) As far as I was concerned, the action reflected little of the aural content, and I wasn't sorry. Shick is a marvelous dancer who has retained her technique, purity, integrity, and idiosyncratic intensity. Hers is a reticent charisma, as compelling as a cars. As long as she knows what she's dancing about, I don't have to. I just think Shick is beautiful, and I am happy to watch her.