Movement allies

Jess Curtis goes global in "International Collaborations 2"

By Rita Felciano

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

An "intercontinental collaboration" may sound like a rescue effort for disaster victims, or perhaps a research project to wipe out bird flu. But that's not what Jess Curtis has in mind — he wants us to realize the United States is not the only place where dance happens. Jess Curtis/Gravity's current program at CounterPULSE, "Intercontinental Collaborations 2," lets in a welcome blast of fresh, foreign air. This minifestival of dance from France, England, and the United States is intelligent, well presented, and a heck of a lot of fun.

The guest artists may not work in genres unknown in these parts (hometown favorites Jo Kreiter and Keith Hennessy work with equipment, as does Jörg Müller from France; both the Bay Area's Axis Dance Company and England's Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company are mixed-ability ensembles), but the visitors add new context to what local, still somewhat marginalized artists are doing. None of this would matter, of course, if the pieces the guests brought were not high quality.

For les tubes (mobile), Müller worked with tubular chimes attached to the ceiling, sending them flying in changing formations. They became disks, ovals, and serpentines; they chased each other, reversed direction, skipped a step, and soared to ever greater heights. The sheer beauty of watching these metallic objects in animated patterns made you want to sing; there was nothing they didn't seem to be able to do. But best of all was seeing Müller performing an intimate dance with them. He caressed them and was in turn embraced by them; he whipped them into action but also, like a mother hen, anxiously hovered over them. (But could he please get rid of that white cotton underwear?)

Blue Eyed Soul's Levels of Perception — a dry title for a savory piece — paired Jami Quarrell, a big, burly performer, with minuscule Claire Cunningham, who danced on crutches. While the physical disparity between these two artists was striking, Curtis's inventive choreography emphasized their equality. Levels' trajectories drew the dancers from wary separation into a weightless togetherness only to send them on their individual ways again. Cunningham was splendid, skipping and air-walking on her crutches, drawing a magic circle around Quarrell that liberated him from a womblike enclosure that became a cloth trapeze. Her thin, delicate feet brought his body to life. Intriguingly, Levels featured a soundtrack with lyrics that detailed the dancers' every move: "I walk on his back," "I feel her feet pressing on my bones." The piece, designed for sight-impaired audiences, allowed the audience to experience the work from an outsider's perspective — as well as from the performers' task-oriented point of view.

It would be interesting to know what Curtis and Müller thought of their collaborators in the amusing party game Performance Research Experiment #1: Virtuosity and Engagement (2004). The lengths of these 11 miniature works — which featured rolling balls, brooms balancing on lower and upper body parts, and games of push and pull — were determined by numbers called out by the audience. Attention spans clearly varied; sometimes I also sensed a rather disconcerting willingness to see how far the performers could be pushed. Did some of us want that broom to fall or to see Curtis no longer able to hold up Müller?

Except for the fine musical underpinning by Peter Whitehead, Curtis's Just Dancing ... (with music) felt rather conventional. Starting with a gestural language that contained easily readable but also more abstract signage, the dancers peeled off into what looked like accidental encounters. They picked up cues from each other — a shoulder roll, a drop to the floor — and at one point fused into a unison that looked quite feeble. According to the program notes, Just mixed improvised with more structured sections. That may have been the case, though I couldn't quite tell what importance this had in the final product. The piece did feature five strong, interestingly diverse dancers: Along with Kevin Dockery and Hana Erdman, there were Mirah Moriarty, a tough roller and jumper who seemed to have a thing going with the similarly physical but more elegant Rodrigo Esteva; and Janine Trinidad, who appeared to be somewhat of a loner, her elegantly articulated fingers occasionally embracing her torso. *

INTERCONTINENTAL COLLABORATIONS 2

Thurs/23–Sun/26, 8:30 p.m.

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

$15–$20 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

(415) 435-7549

www.jesscurtisgravity.org