In Which I Support the Arts as They Should Be

There is life outside this little hamlet a few km left of center of nowhere.  Sometimes, we forget this, so accordingly, we went on a pilgrimage to Denver, to see actual art.  Also, a dear friend of mine from Peace Corps Tanzania who has earned my admiration for many feats of strength and capacity building, including, but not limited to, teaching comprehensive sex education to Masai dudebros and running a half marathon while suffering from giardia.

On to the main event!  Actual art!  A dance show that is not a haphazard mess!  Momix' Botanica!  This is everything that art should be.  It incorporates "digital technology," or more meaningfully, projection technology, in a way that adds to the performance and delights the audience, beginning with the opening in which green lights dance on the curtain and form smiley faces, or birds, or stick figures, dancing or fighting with one another.  I have never seen moving lights anthropomorphized so perfectly.   A storm sequence alternately lit first the dancers, then increasingly enlarged projections of them on the screen behind.  At the end, to Azam Ali's beautiful rendition of "Aj Ondas" a dancer manipulated a giant sail on which changing flowers were projected.  Most of the time, though, the projection screen was just used for pretty easily changeable backgrounds.  It is so easy for projections to be used sillily, and I've seen that quite a lot, but this was projection done right.

The non-electronic props were used just as effectively, my favorite being the woman (possibly representing a jellyfish?) in a sort of headdress with long strands of light-catching something falling freely around her.  All she did was spin and turn, while the light-catching somethings spread out and spun the light with her.  It was beautiful.  Additionally, during the above-mentioned storm scene, men held and spun long (10 ft+) poles from which fluttered rippling silk for other dancers to leap over and under as the lightning flashed.  A group of mushroom women had amazing long pale green dresses with giant fluffy orange fluff at the hem, an orange fluff which could be raised for them to hide behind, or held at tutu level.  The fluff was moved up and down by (I think) strings attached to the dancers' hands.

The choreography itself constantly surprised and invited the audience to see movement in new ways or set up what appeared to be cliches, only to destroy them.  One of the very first acts was a woman on a mirror, dancing with her own reflection.  Simple, graceful movements, reflected and lit in gold, making her into constant symmetrical patterns both abstract and intimate.  Later on, we see a man sleeping in a forest, and a woman sees him and wants to approach.  Just as we think we are about to witness an Eve and Adam type scene, the woman's friendly dinosaur skeleton becomes jealous and eats her.  Which is a little disturbing.  More importantly, somewhere in the world, there are people whose job it is to create and operate a giant skeleton dinosaur puppet.  This world is beautiful.  Near the end of the show, a group of "centaurs," each composed of two dancers, one upright, one behind bent over, demonstrated amazing coordination in creating a horselike optical illusion.  Likewise, the dancing worms (pair acrobatics in soft green light) appeared wormlike, rather than human.

Overall, the performance was excellent.  Beautifully designed by an illusionist, and exquisitely performed by masterful dancers.  This is what art should be.  This is how to show us new ways of dance and movement while constantly delighting us with beauty.