Thomas Hunter Hall at Hunter College Studio Theatre, 6th Floor Photo: Google Street View

The Hunter College Dance Faculty Fling

Studio Theatre, 6th Floor Thomas Hunter Hall
February 4 and 5, 2010

A Review

One of the most difficult teaching jobs I ever had was teaching teachers First Aid during WWII. They had to know how to stop bleeding and perform other emergency procedures should there be an attack and children hurt. First Aid was serious business and an attack was not a pie-in-the-sky matter. Yet these teachers played as if they were adolescents in a music appreciation class taught by a portly contralto. As I sat watching the evening’s pieces—an evening filled with kitsch and “dream works”—I was reminded of the adolescent behavior of those teachers, for much of the work in this concert was choreographed “down” to what the choreographers perceived the students wanted to see.

Some of the works were definitely not among the kitsch and dream work, notably Illusionally Yours, a duet choreographed Gerald Otte with music by Prokofiev. I appreciated Mr. Otte’s clear, well-conceived and meticulous choreography. His dancers did well, but they did not quite make the choreography “sing.” His male dancer needs to loosen his spine some; it frequently held back the intent of the motion.

I enjoyed Unity as well, choreographed by Anna Nobel, Robin Dunn, and Yotam Kafri. The ballet toe work and the hip-hop together were great fun, well done, and spiritedly danced. The piece hardly needed the opening spoken narrative, but in light of the clean pointe work and the exuberant “sneaker work,” I certainly can forgive.

And Triptych Suite #1 and Diptych #1, conceived and performed by Megan Boyd and Luka Kito, presented an interesting excursion into new video technology. Kito has an interesting eye for motion and an ear for sound, which he composed.

Just Lucky was a trio performed by one woman and two men who grunted around the stage to a score of human vocal sounds. It could have been funnier, but clearly the students in the audience enjoyed seeing their faculty members cavorting stupidly.

David Capps tackled an interesting proposition in The Next Garden, a pleasant boy-girl duet, competently performed. Would Eden be different the next time around? I think Capps said, “No.”

But some things I cannot forgive. I truly don't know what was most offensive—the dull indulgence in My Secret India (although I did enjoy watching Lori Brungard don her sari), the lighting effects of Untitled wherein the audience’s eyes were treated to blinding light for absolutely no theatrical meaning, or the “I gotta go” hands-on-crotch jiggling in Half the Time. However, the unintelligible scribbled video projections to a non-end (also in Half the Time) “takes the gold” for offense. Alleged in the program to be “interactive video” (which can be a truly wonderful technology), it was nothing but a total distraction from the performers onstage. These pieces are all offensive to common sensibility, but this last was completely inexcusable, especially in a seat of higher learning, because it denigrates both the art of dance and an emerging technology.

Art needs experimentation, and our loci of higher learning are where this experimentation should be housed. I am all for seeking the use of light, sound, technology, and yes, saris and the like in conjunction with the motion of dance. However, some kind of aesthetic vision needs to propel idea, and it is the faculty of the institution who bear the responsibility of providing same.

—Ruth E. Grauert, February 6, 2010