Mouthing Off

All the pretty horses: Heather Murphy (left) and Sally Hess are just two of more than 40 dancers sharing their stories this weekend.

Experimental documentary dance project "From the Horse's Mouth" lets Philly dancers speak their minds.

by Janet Anderson

Dancers usually let their bodies do the talking, but not this weekend. "From the Horse’s Mouth" sends more than 40 local dancers, performing each night in different groups of 30, onto the Painted Bride stage, where they’ll tell a story about themselves and show something of what they do. This time it’s not critics who’ll describe their work -- it will come right from the horse’s mouth.

"Horse's Mouth" is a traveling production that has been mounted across America, starting with New York City in 1998. A flexible road show that recasts its performers in every city, it's been produced from coast to coast in cities large and small. Each production is a new "chapter" of dance's story. And every cast is different. This stage celebration of dance's diversity is the brainchild of longtime friends, dancer Tina Croll and director Jamie Cunningham.

Croll and Cunningham go back to the 1960s, when both did experimental work at New York's Dance Theater Workshop. Cunningham laughs, saying, "We're just old hippies. And we wanted to celebrate a bit of "The Age of Aquarius' spirit where we saw a world open to all ages, races and conditions. You still can find that in dance."

The dancers choose their own story to share, as well as some characteristic movements from their own dance vocabulary. Then they're instructed on how to improvise the snippet -- things like, "Do it like Isadora" or, "Do it like a snake." Eventually the stage will be filled with dancers talking, moving, improvising and interacting with each other. Sound confusing? In every place "Horse's Mouth" has been done so far, it's turned into a love fest.

Ann Vachon serves as the show's local curator, and her company, Dance Conduit, is co-sponsoring the event with Painted Bride. A former José Limín dancer and well-known local performer and teacher, Vachon participated in a New York production of "Horse's Mouth" and knows the show from both sides of the curtain. While Vachon selected amazingly diverse dancers, the flexible nature of the project means she can't stop thinking things like, "Wouldn't it have been wonderful to have a Mummer in the show?"

Though Mummers are conspicuously absent, the lineup does include Leah Stein, Grace Mi-He Lee, Ron Wood, Gwendolyn Bye, Heather Murphy, Joe Cicala, Roko Kawai, Merin Soto, Paul Struck, Myra Bazell -- the list goes on.

Mary Edsall, curator of Temple's Philadelphia Dance Collection, thought the show inspired "a special appreciation for dancer's bodies, and how they represent every gender, age, size and shape." Although a sprained ankle keeps her from performing, Edsall came away convinced that, for performer and audience alike, the show "broadens your perspective on what the dancing body is."

How do the participants feel about being in this showcase? Nervous. Vachon says, "Everyone looked buoyant at the end of the run-through, but obviously was nervous anyway. Tina and Jamie asked if they could help calm everyone down. I said, "Of course we're nervous. We're all perfectionists in what we do, and we'll all be grateful when our own small part is over.'"

One of the older dancing bodies belongs to Audrey Bookspan, a 1940s student of Martha Graham, who called Bookspan "my wretched child." This soon-to-be-75-year-old worries about "finding my own authenticity" in the experience, as she's been asked to perform tap in soft shoes (taps might drown out the speakers). "It's a wonderful idea," Bookspan's quick to add, "and the chance to meet all these people has been a joyous experience."

Pennsylvania Ballet principal Dede Barfield echoes these sentiments, saying, "The process is a little frightening to me because so much of what you do in the show, you design yourself. I am not a choreographer and never wanted to be. As a classical ballet dancer, all the structure and order is given to you. And, good God, the idea of improvising during a performance?" Still, Barfield "loved listening to the stories of the other dancers."

Undoubtedly these thoroughbreds will calm down. Charles O. Anderson, a relative newcomer to the Philadelphia modern-dance world, arrived here four years ago and his "constant question is whether I am part of this community." "After the run-through," Anderson says, "I looked around and said: "Damn, I am!'"

It seems likely that dancers and audience will end on the same high note, feeling that "damn, I am" sense of being part of one vibrant local dance community.

"From the Horse’s Mouth" takes place Thu.-Sat., Nov. 20-22, 8 p.m., $15-$20, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914. Post-performance receptions with Barbara Weisberger (Nov. 20), Randy Swartz (Nov. 21) and Pearl Schaeffer (Nov. 22). Author Brenda Dixon Gottschild will sign copies of her book, The Black Dancing Body, during the Nov. 20 reception.