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In Their Own World

“Conjunto di NERO”
Emio Greco/PC
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
January 17, 2006

by Susan Reiter
copyright ©2006 by Susan Reiter
    
 
Between the darkness, the shapeless fuzzy black costumes, and the insistent, slippery movement, “Conjunto di NERO” conspired to minimize any notion of human contact and communication. Six busy, purposeful dancers functioned within a shrouded otherworldly locale, seemingly propelled by a strange inner momentum or sent charging across the limited visible space. When, midway through, a woman actually stopped long enough to look boldly out at the audience, it was a shock to have an acknowledgement of our presence, so enclosed and encoded were the proceedings.

Emio Greco/PC is a collaboration between Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, both of whom are credited as both choreographer and director for this work. Greco, a nimble, lithe, intense presence, is also one of the six dancers in the 2001 “Conjunto di NERO “ (“Conjunction of Black”), and as the work progressed, his role became increasingly central. Scholten, a Dutch theater director and dramaturge, and Greco, an Italian whose background includes classical ballet, formed their company in 1995; a program note cites a “curiosity about the body and its inner motives” as the impetus for their collaborative work.
 
While “Conjunto di NERO” is vividly theatrical, it derives its theatricality from the fiercely focused movement—and the extremes of light and darkness—rather than any overlay of additional elements. There is something very pure about its maniacal intensity. The movement seems to emerge from utter necessity, as though the dancers had no choice but to propel themselves through their riveting, at times disturbing, sequences.
 
A tall figure (Suzan Tunca) looms within a hazy darkness before the work proper begins, and heavy banks of spotlights are visible hanging above her. Once the proceedings begin, domain becomes the illuminated front third of the stage—behind her is a wall of darkness. Her introductory solo in toe shoes is meandering compared to the more sharply focused, look-away-if-you-dare duets and small ensembles that succeed it. Her back to us, she staggers and crumples as she makes her way form stage right to stage left, then momentarily gets lost in the upstage void before reappearing, her arms artfully hyperextended up and back like wings.
 
An extended trio early in the piece featured amazingly precise unison, the two men and a woman seeming to breathe as one as they executed exceptionally articulated footwork amid heavy side lunges and stealthy crouching. There was something touching about seeing bodies trapped in fabric that made them appear lumpy display such swift, sharp accuracy. This degree of engagement was not always sustained, as various pathways, squares and corners of light determined the traversals of the stage. But much of the time, there was a sustained, potentially ominous tone; these odd, put-upon creatures seemed to be striving towards expression within an aggressively hostile, disquieting universe.
 
Wim Selles’ sound collage (Greco and Scholten are credited with “sound concept”) is a continuously shifting amalgam of pulsating mechanical and industrial-strength electronic noises that help create the ongoing sense that something dire and dangerous is taking place. At times, it dominates the movement, as when an extremely loud, shrill whistling sound creates the effect of a dentist’s drill. The brief interludes of silence are needed to recover form some of this onslaught. In the later sections of the work, Selles weaves in some actually recognizable musical elements, such as a wailing clarinet melody that suggests ancient rituals, or the bluesy interlude just before the end.
 
Early on, I found myself thinking that after Jennifer Tipton’s amazing light-and-dark effects for Twyla Tharp’s “Fait Accompli” and “In the Upper Room, the lighting extremes in “Conjunto di NERO” would not have much capacity to astound. But for substantial portions of its 75-minute duration, the work’s febrile urgency, the dancers’ desperate, driven intensity, and the uneasy, unpredictable degree of visibility combined to create something riveting in its inscrutability. Struggling to articulate within their dark, sacklike garments and to pierce the darkness with their driven, desperate activity, these not-quite-human beings dared us to look away.

Photo: Jean Pierre Stoop

Volume 4, No. 3
January 23, 2006

copyright ©2006 Susan Reiter
www.danceviewtimes.com

 

 

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last updated on January 23, 2006