trailerpilot

The Field Chicago has been on my radar for awhile but it wasn’t until last night I was able to attend their annual “performance marathon,” Fieldtrips (it continues with five more works tonight at 7:30). The detail about The Field’s mission says it’s “completely non-curated,” but the seven-part mixed bill felt of a common spirit. It was also programmed impeccably — there’s no other order I would have put those works in.

Solo Movement Collective is a quartet of women dancers who, although aware of each others’ space, remain wedded to their own interior worlds. It’s length (about twenty minutes) actually served it well, revealing subtle layers of interaction and nuance as it progressed. Mary Wu is a potent balance of physical power and impossible softness, capturing my attention many times throughout Untitled Work 1. Embodying apartness, Melissa Simo was on a completely separate plane, acknowledging the front and audience many times during her articulate, unpredictably-coordinated dancing, full of strange shapes and indecipherable gestures. Aislinn Gagliardi and Elisa Foshay explored their own territories in kind, both exceptionally aware of composition — their movement and spatial choices often seemed to “fill out” the space and collective image. They make a beautiful group, uniquely varied but on the same page in a generous sense.

Showing up far past fashionably late to a benefit performance last month, I missed Jessica Wright’s work. Luckily I didn’t a second time. Her Untitled duet for herself and Christine Benson shows the influence of Julie Mayo (of whose Dim Sum Dance they are both members) as well as a train of investigation into some serious craft and she’s very, very fun. One motif consists of a shimmy in extremis, something genteel and barely risqué from a 1950s sock hop that’s gone beyond awry, hands stretched out to the side as if to protect innocent bystanders. Another throughline is a cartoonishly bouncy quality: Added to phrases that would perhaps be standard-issue contemporary dance, there’s a light touch that not only makes the movement individual but foils the gravity of the floorwork (although it’s nicely grounded as well). It was the shortest work on the program, but also the most dense by far. Read More…