Though nearly impossible, sometimes it's best to go into a performance knowing absolutely nothing about it. And that was exactly how "Versus," which premiered this weekend at Emory's Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, needed to be experienced.
Choreographed by Emory Dance Department Senior Lecturer George Staib and performed by his independent company Staibdance, "Versus" was both entrancing and daunting. In Dance Department Director Lori Teague's opening address, she instructed audience members not to think too hard about the dance – just "feel." But it can be difficult to turn off the impulse to interpret.
So naturally, I ignored Teague's cautions and spent the majority of "Versus" trying to "figure it out." And at the performance's end, I still had no idea what was going on. But I absolutely enjoyed it.
As soon as the lights went up, you could tell there was going to be something special about this show. The first of the three sections of "Versus," titled "I: Crevasse," opened to reveal Staibdance company member Claire Molla kneeling in a muted spotlight, motionless, as the other dancers stood in darkness behind her.
Molla quickly broke into dance, effortlessly alternating between stillness and suspension to quick, agile movement. Molla is a captivating performer, her movements feel organic and pure.
The other two sections of "Versus," titled "We: Touché" and "Them: Mob" followed a similar mindset: undefined yet stimulating, puzzling yet mesmerizing. For its part, the second segment provided the show's most concrete offerings.
Voiceovers offered a recitation of a police record, audio snippets from soap operas and sound effects from commercials.
As the melodramatic, satirical sounds played, the dancers migrated in a circle around the perimeter of the stage, "chugging along" in a line. And in an unexpected turn of events, they began slapping each other. Seriously. Slapping, pushing, kicking and throwing.
Though intriguing at first, this portion seemed to drag on just a bit too long: the novelty of on-stage combat quickly wore off, and the dancers' pained reactions to the violence became irritating. Perhaps this irritation was the point, but it proved a vicious circle, repetitive and maddening, but by all means inescapable.
After all the dancers had traveled around the circle and sufficiently hurt one another, they joined forces. One by one, each dancer joined the pack as they changed direction, marching forward in a configuration resembling an army.
Once they had assembled the team, they stopped to face the audience in a confrontational manner – defiantly transitioning from provoking each other to being the "we" referenced by the section's title.
Though a piece of an entirely different nature, particular praise is owed to Nicholas Surbey ('10C) and Staibdance company member Erik Thurmond, who followed that striking section with a plain, simple duet.
They employed no theatrics, no gimmicks, not even a smidgen of humor. Just the two of them alongside an exquisite piano accompaniment, easily commanding the stage. After the intensity of the preceding segment, this duet was a welcome shift in tone, thanks to its simplicity, vitality and serenity.
And finally, "Them: Mob" integrated the themes of the previous two sections, as the dancers moved both in impeccable unison and occasionally on their own. On numerous occasions, they reached for one another in unusual manners: a hand grasping for a foot, a head rested on a chest. And in these curious movements, it was often unclear whether they were assisting or obstructing one another, if they were struggling together or against each other.
After 70 minutes of non-stop dancing, "Versus" concluded just as swiftly as it had begun. On a dimly-lit stage, the group of dancers flowing through space suddenly stopped moving to stand in a line facing forward. They stood up straight and gently walked backwards into the darkness, laughing knowingly at the audience.
And then, all of a sudden, that was it. It was a jarring, unexpectedly quick conclusion to the dance, leaving a sense of tenseness and uncertainty in the air.
It is moments like that one which illuminate why we're always attempting to decipher dance – because the art form is, by nature, so conceptual. There are no concrete words to tell us what's going on, yet there are so many deliberate choices that define the performance: music, costumes, lighting, moments like this ending.
Maybe that intangibility is part of why "Versus" was so challenging to process. It wasn't a specific story; it didn't follow one character's clashes with these issues. Rather, "Versus" spoke universally to issues of conflict and resolution, harmony and turbulence. And when the performance is centered on such an immense notion, maybe the only way to grasp that concept is by absorbing it emotionally rather than intellectually.
That can be hard to accomplish, but in the case of "Versus," it made the viewing experience all the more worthwhile.
– By Emelia Fredlick
Photo courtesy of Anton Molla
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