CATCH … What You Can. - Ohio Theater, New York, New York - dance reviews

Dance Magazine, March, 1997 by Alice Naude

Small venues are particularly well suited to tightly constructed dances, for their intimate atmosphere can foster an emotional immediacy. Two young choreographers, Beth Coiner and Eun Me Ahn, used tight space to their best advantage, creating some of the most striking work of the downtown fall season. On the other hand, Hilary Easton and Joy Kellman, veteran choreographers both, were less successful, their performances constrained--though perhaps more so emotionally than physically.

Coiner is a smart and feisty dancer who marries acute observations about youth culture with idiosyncratic gestures that have genuine resonance. In Green Girl, a duet with Jennifer A. Phillips presented at Dance Theater Workshop as part of its Split Stream series, Coiner plays a raw and vulnerable soul. Phillips, copying her every move, transforms them into cool, soulless perfection. As they dance, the contrast becomes almost painful. Phillips has an icy assurance, but the green girl is infinitely more interesting to watch. Coiner further explores the relationship between sexuality and performance in Third Wheel, a dark comedy in which three characters--a lanky cowboy (Craig Peterson), a manic good-time guy (James Taylor), and a coquette (Phillips)--vie for each other's attention. The trio seems to be having fun, riding horses, driving cars, and channel surfing. But the romp has a poignant hollowness. It's love in the time of TV and short attention spans, and, as the dancers turn the remote control on each other, if's unclear whether they are trying to change or just amuse themselves.

Seduction and performance are also themes in Hilary Easton's Two or Three Things I See in You, presented during her company's season at DTW. Dancing to a gorgeous score by Steve Elson, Pamela Cohen and Peter D'Orsaneo trade solicitous flirtations--she more sure of her intentions than he. As he ambles across the stage she darts in front of him, asserting her presence. Throughout, they turn to the audience and look out meaningfully. Are they seeing things in each other or in us? The question is never really answered and the mood remains light and playful. Easton's choreography is limpid and orderly, her gestures spare and sure and as if they have been cut from glass. But the decisiveness in gesture never builds a clear mood. In Two, as in her other dances on this program, the underlying feeling is elusive.

Also elusive about relationships is Joy Kellman's CATCH . . . What You Can, a premiere presented as part of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project's 1996 season. Kellman's idiom is highly physical, full of energetic tumbles, barreling jumps, and contact improvisation-type partnering. The motifs in this piece--catching and falling--become clear as dancers fly through the air, toss red rubber balls, and fall backward into waiting arms. Amid all this excitement, Eric Handman and Lucia Horn, a central couple, approach each other tenderly, repeatedly, but never successfully. To be caught, you need to fall, it seems, and these two never do. In fact the whole piece, like the lovers, feels oddly restrained. Despite all the flying around there's a fear of letting go.

Eun Me Ahn does let go. And in her free fall through four interconnected and highly charged dances presented at the Ohio Theater, the most affecting moments were her solos, Baby Tomb and Empty Tomb. In the former she is wrapped in a cocoon of white paper while a rope, an umbilicus, extends from the top of her shaved head. Moving slowly, she shakes the swaddling from her body and crawls toward the audience with a curious and menacing expression on her face. To the amplified sounds of a human heartbeat, the piece suggests a lonely sadness in being a baby. Empty Tomb, on the other hand, is vigorous and playful. In white flowing trousers with a rose attached to her head, Ahn dances with a tiny, whirring mechanical doll--a bride or a ballerina. As it flits across the floor, she moves from mock flamenco to urgent ritual gestures, conjuring an angry energy that makes the space feel anything but empty.