The Department of Dance at Cal State Long Beach opened its spring faculty concert last week with a special piece by Jiri Kylian staged by Fiona Lummis, formerly of the Netherlands Dance Theater (NDT).
CSULB’s dance program has a strong emphasis on modern dance, but this concert had a refreshing nod to ballet. That, combined with the special guest choreography, made the concert an enjoyable evening for the audience.
The show, which took place last Wednesday through Sunday, opened with “Set and Drift” by Lorin Johnson. The dancers were in pointe ballet shoes, but the work had a modern, lively flair to it. The piece also poked fun at typical ballets with over-exaggerated Swan Lake-esque arms and fawning. The dancers frequently toed the lies between ballet and modern transitioning from bent, broken arms to long, flowing arms. The piece ended with the dancers fighting for the limelight until all but one dancer had been pushed down.
“Fallen Angels” by Jiri Kylian, renowned artistic director of the NDT, was staged by special guest choreographer Lummis for the spring concert.
The piece began with no music as the dancers walked over barriers to the front of the stage. Then, the silence was replaced with loud tribal drums. The dancers used a lot of isolations, balletic arms and energetic movements. The dancers rarely changed formation and didn’t travel much, but the combination of African dance, modern dance and ballet was enough to keep the audiences’ attention for the entirety of the dance.
After intermission, “Secret Dark World” by Keith Johnson premiered. This piece started with darkness and a woman’s voice saying, “That’s it! That’s a big boy,” as a male dancer crawled and then gradually walked across the stage.
This piece portrayed the dancers as children playing together. Music, reminiscent of a jungle gym, set the tone for childlike contact improvisation-based movement, handstands and games like London-bridges-falling-down. The trio of female dancers broke apart and had their own piece; complete with hair pulling, gossiping and all the other things little girls put each other through. Then, the kids crashed, the music stopped and it was naptime.
Darkness set in again and the mood felt heavier. One girl, wearing a blindfold, woke up as another walked one of the boys on a leash, while he wore nothing but his underpants. Two other boys in their underwear wore monkey and elephant masks while jumping around. It was decidedly creepy, but this second portion of the piece’s theme was rather unclear. It could have been anything from mental illness to child pornography, but in any case the title “Secret Dark World” was very apt.
All of the other dancers took turns lifting and pushing the blindfolded girl. At last, they all crowded around her and pulled the blindfold off. Gradually, the nightmare ended and the dancers went back to being carefree children.
The piece started out with the potential to steal the show, but ended with a bad taste in your mouth. But perhaps that was the choreographer’s intention.
For more information about the dance department, visit csulb.edu/dept/dance.
