Jumpsuit (the long form counterpart to Short Shorts open mic-style performance night), offers artists longer than five minutes to try out an idea. It’s a platform for works in early stage development, or even just studies so artists can try out a particular concept in a “low-stakes environment.” By design, it’s not ready to be formally reviewed. So reflecting that, I’m going to write informally about the most recent Jumpsuit (April 19 + 26 at Seattle Open Arts Place), what artists are working on, what it made me think about, and where I think it could go from here.
The first work is Lou Chow’s and Joan Swartwood’s To a Flame. Swartwood enters in fluffy boots, tawny wings, and a knit hat complete with big fuzzy antennae. Then Chow follows in draping black fringe and a lampshade entirely encasing their head. Yes, it’s a moth and a lamp, and the charming costumes set the stage for a story of attraction. Chow’s movements are a continuous swirling, arms waving, occasionally with a high leg extension. Swartwood’s start more pedestrian, but then they eventually find a unison dance phrase, circling each other. At one point the lamp turns on (ooooooh!) the moth brings out candles (aaaaaaah!) and there’s a gentle coming together throughout.
The strength of this work is imagery, which is already very strong in costume and concept. But I wonder about how the movement itself or the structure of the piece could support that imagery, or build a stronger narrative. The even dynamics of the dancing meant it all became a gentle blur in my memory, and I think there’s a lot of potential here to add specificity around what lamp dances like, vs what moth dances like, and to let strong movement ideas hold our attention for longer (ie can slower things be slower, can faster things be faster, can dynamic stillnesses or spatial decisions create drama?) In attending to the narrative, how are stakes created so that the audience becomes invested in this love story? What must moth overcome to reach lamp? Does lamp return moth’s love? And what makes lamp “turn on?” With a little development, what is simply sweet now could also hold a lot of resonance.
Animal Transformation—with direction, writing, sound design, choreography, and performance by Alex (Alexandra) Kronz—is a different kind of experimentation. Rather than a first stab at a concept, this is a research exercise in working through the challenges of a highly ambitious piece. Four narrated stories (recited mostly by Nathan Drackett, who also performs characters on stage) describe a series of thematically overlapping but distinct stories. A wolf attack set in the arctic, a bear attack set in the Old West, an alien infiltration in a dilapidated space station, and a person having an episode of mental illness in current day. Each vignette begins with performing the scene (characters played by Kronz and Drackett along with Naphtali Gunther and Lauran Drackett) and concludes with the same fight choreography in which the animal, alien, or human is stabbed. In between each scene a pop song comes on and 1-4 dancers do a repeated phrase of modern dance moves—floor slides, popping up into down dog, spine rippling as they push off the wall.
The strongest aspect of this work, to me, is some clever things the script is doing where lines from one scene slide into another. They are out of place the first time you hear them and then when they reoccur in context it’s very satisfying. And the structure of repeated vignettes pulls my interest as a complex way to convey meaning. Or perhaps a way to convey complex meaning. I think some of that complexity/blurring needs to be brought into the other ways this piece is being made. Mostly the approach to movement is a very literal miming of the scripted story. I wish Kronz leaned into the potential of the movements to add complexity to the script, rather than a one-to-one translation of text to illustrative movements. For example, if a moment is about fear, how can fear be conveyed through dance that isn’t just acting out being afraid? Can maybe the dancing contradict the script? Push the script in places? On the flip-side, the abstract modern dance interludes between scenes felt totally disconnected from the script. Maybe there’s a way to meet in the middle.
There’s an additional challenge here, which that it’s really really hard to build the kind of heightened emotional stakes this piece is attempting through stage fighting alone. Especially an extended fight sequence. We know that it’s not real and it’s trying to appear real, and the gap between those keeps us from believing. Working in the medium of dance, how can we use dynamics and composition of movement to convey threat/violence/stakes, even if it’s not a literal representation? Perhaps there is one effective “fight move” that drops unexpectedly into the choreography and emotionally guts us with its sudden realism? But ultimately, I believe abstraction can get at deeper visceral feelings than chasing a realism that is almost impossible to achieve in stage combat.
Noelle Chun presented a solo, This: Body, which feels like the kind of experimentation that is an answer to itself: an intention set out and completed. Dancing to “Moving mtns” by CoCo Loupe, a poetic invitation to a moving meditation, Chun drops in. Folding, extending, softly swirling. She shifts through sculptural shapes, spirals, and moments of groove. Chun’s grounded presence and ease guides – she never rushes or aspires. I imagine there’s some personal, quiet joy in this place of returning to the body’s simple impulses.
Mask, by Alexandra Romanyshyn, felt to me to be the most experimental in the scientific sense—she tries many things in an attempt at discovery. Her solo begins with a big infectious smile directly at the audience, which quickly gives way to uneasy breaths. “I would like to leave now,” she says through her teeth. It catches us off guard but it is, simultaneously, very relatable. Romanyshyn’s comedic timing and charm are strengths that create instant investment. She dances while repeating a rapid-fire tongue twister. She messes up. Shit. There’s a few modern dance moves, then she’s back into her state of self-conscious entertainment: less-than-enthusiastic Charlestons and looping sissónes where she’s checking her watch. A Jewel song plays! I don’t know what “Who Will Save Your Soul” has to do with the material, but I am sort of thrilled by the randomness? Or perhaps just nostalgia? Then an emotional Arvo Pärt song carries us into the more serious second half, where Romanyshyn takes off her long sleeves and leggings to reveal criss-crossing kinesiology tape covering her whole body. She balances on one knee on the floor, leg extending. Perhaps, the tape suggests, underneath this uneasy entertainment is a great deal of physical pain.
Even though these pieces couldn’t be more different, each one got me thinking about the way we construct dances. There’s a tendency for all of us trained in “dance moves” to fall back on those well-worn grooves, but they can so often clutter the imagery and dilute the specificity of the work. I’m talking about the modern butt roll, the fan kick, the head circle, the contemporary swirl—either these are unnecessary, or they need to be put in a context that honors what that specific move has to give. Can the choice of movement serve the narrative? And can the pacing and structure create a dynamic arc in which these movements build toward meaning that relies less on external cues? Not just sound, script, costume, but meaning built into the dance itself.
It is wonderful that platforms like Jumpsuit exits, so that artists can try out concepts and get the kind of information you can only get from really performing something in front of an audience. I think this is a critical missing step for many people developing work. It is also great to see so many people gathered together in SOAP, excited to be witness to fresh, in-process pieces, and the kind of vulnerability it takes for an artist to try new ideas.
