May 29–June 5, 1997

critical mass

Ed Groff and Jin-Wen Yu

Groff (of Temple University's dance faculty) and Yu (headed to University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty) collaborated on an often thrilling evening of dance last weekend at the Arts Bank. The two are used to collaboration, having formed ArtifactProductions to showcase joint work since 1995; Artifact Productions has performed both internationally and at home.

This past weekend's performance comprised three pieces by Yu, two by Groff. The work is physical — climbing, turning, running, crawling, lifting, writhing, rolling — more often slow-paced than fast. The accent is on the body: tuned, dancerly and incontrol of the movement. (And therefore requiring well-trained dancers, which the concert had: Tony Agostinelli, Alexander Chase, Janet Pilla, James Frazier, Lynn Neumann, Wen-Chin Wu and Yu were the most noteworthy.) But it's also cerebral work,with intriguing symbolism.

Yu's First Fall begins with the dancer suspended on two rope ladders — the double helix? — and opening music hauntingly like church bells. He descends, carefully, experimenting with new poses like a child: now sticking an arm and shouldersthrough one rope square, now holding himself between the two ladders by his ankles and neck. Once he's earthborne, the ladders disappear, the pace picks up to a more energetic group piece. It's a sextet of dancers frequently partnering each other inlifts, turns, and — apropos of the fall theme — catching, propping or building a brief human engine out of another dancer's movement.

Groff's first piece, Implicit Consent, was a quite beautiful duet beautifully performed by Chase (currently a member of Momix) and Pilla (with Ann Vachon/Dance Conduit, a company dedicated to the Humphrey/Limon style).

The dancers wore next to nothing: flesh-colored sports bra and panties for her, a loincloth for him that left the buttocks bare. I found, given the quality of the movement and of the performance, I focused less on the nudity than on the sculpture ofthe body. The movement included the animal-like: dancers on their toes in a squat; an arm stroking the body in a washing motion like a cat's; he carrying her on his back with a crab motion. It also included the human-like: the two lying foldedtogether, he reaching without looking out to lay a hand on her. The pace was like that of slow lovemaking, but, again, Groff departed from recognizable sexual movement, pushed toward something new.

A longer, more ambitious Groff piece, The Dreams of Father Schedoni, premiered later in the evening and built on similar movement. Dreams begins with a heap of flesh-underwear-clad dancers near a statue of the Virgin Mary. They start tomove, and then, with a bad-dream cry, a man in an alcove above them sits up on his cot in a cell and stares at a cross, while they vanish. The piece, per Groff's program notes, is an exploration of the medieval monastic attitudes toward the body andsexuality. I found it at times hard to follow, but promising. Anyway, if somebody's going to explore medieval sexuality, my vote is for Groff. I would love to see him and Yu in concert again. Soon.

— Lisa Coffman