Return to PHL, featuring Roko Kawai and Rennie Harris, represented a reunion of sorts for these dance artists. In 1991 the pair performed at the Painted Bride as part of the percussion/movement ensemble Splinter Group. Since then Harris has gone on to lead his acclaimed Puremovement company and Kawai has built a successful solo career. The two did not perform together here, yet they still share an attitude toward dancemaking where cultural roots are a basis for their work.

Kawai is currently exploring Japanese classical dance. With Mitsumen: A Beginning, dressed in a kimono, she re-created an excerpt of a tale about a baby sitter who amuses an infant by acting out a story. Kawai was entertaining as she smoothly switched between three masks to portray different characters while making exaggerated antic gestures to convey dialogue and characters (puffing her body out, wobbling and later stumbling when pretending to be a drunken man). Performed to authentic Japanese song and music, Mitsumen was an intriguing view into a centuries-old culture. Meanwhile, Response Time, for which Kawai teamed with Toshi Makihara (who plays a drum and metal bowls as well as dances), was a contemporary conceptual work contemplating how people react, instigate, or simply just be. Navigating around lines marking three sides of a square, when outside these boundaries Kawai's movements were linear and formulaic, but when inside they became looser and more freewheeling: A simple swinging arm on the outside goes full circle and later acts like a propeller on the inside. When Makihara joined the dance the two took turns leading and following each other's actions to create an unspoken dialogue.

Harris' PrinceScareKrow's Road the Emerald City was noted as a work-in-progress, and it would seem an early-stage one at that. Video and other visual design by Tobin Rothlein was often lost on a makeshift screen made of torn plastic sheeting. A provocative soundtrack mixing classical, metal and funk music plus spoken snippets was at times overmixed beyond what may be considered creative cacophony.

Harris' movement featured his self-styled theatrical hip-hop featuring experimental deconstruction of poppin', lockin' and boogaloo combined with aspects of butoh dance. He is a man wrestling with personal demons—childhood trauma, religious confliction, the trials of mean urban streets—who is freed by the spirit of dance. Harris has trod this ground before to sensational effect, but he's still workshopping this piece. The presentation was a fuzzy test-run. We'll have to wait till later iterations for clearer vision.

Return to PHL

May 13, Painted Bride Art Center