SINGULAR BODIES by various choreographers (Toronto Dance Theatre). At the Winchester Street Theatre (80 Winchester). Runs to April 23. $20-$26. 416-967-1365, tdt.org. See listing. Rating: NNN
Dance and the visual arts have a long and stimulating relationship, though its practitioners usually remain firmly inside their own disciplinary silos. What would happen if their collaboration went straight to the heart of the matter and visual art were asked to meet dance on its own terms?
Toronto Dance Theatre tried out the concept last year with great success in the On Display solos event. So Singular Bodies, in which 11 Toronto-based visual artists create solos with company dancers, is a proposition with promise.
Unfortunately, no matter how satisfying the individual collaborations may have been for the partners involved, this show makes prickly viewing.
Too many of the pieces feel shallow, perhaps the result of visual artists insufficiently understanding the possibilities of the human body in motion. These segments are justifiably minimal, but coldly, heartlessly so. A few even feel strangely dated, referencing old academic ideas about culture without fresh insight or perspective.
That said, there’s lots of beauty on display. Jarrett Siddall shows both fluidity and strength in Stephen Andrews‘s You And I. Other fine moments: a fiery Megumi Kokuba in Johanna Householder‘s 8 Legged Dancing, and the wonderful Erin Poole, a guest artist in this show, in the most kinetic work of the evening, Walter Scott‘s Take my scepter/take my blade.
The most successful solos present simple concepts with immaculate focus.
In Jon Sasaki‘s brief A Rest, James Phillips (another guest artist) adopts poses taken from Depression-era dance marathon imagery. Diane Borsato and Valerie Calam‘s deadpan spitpop (yes, it involves chewing gum) is playfully subversive. And Jim Verburg‘s elegant Shape And Light #1, with Justin de Luna, explores in a simple way what happens when you interrupt light. Here, the choreographic teams achieve quiet studies that seem genuinely cooperative.
Now that some time has passed since I saw the show, I think its irritations can be seen as strengths as well as weaknesses. For me, it provoked some serious thinking about what to desire and hope for from dance, or from art in general. It’s just that for the most part, Singular Bodies wasn’t it.
