IndepenDance Forum 1: an instruction manual in low res (Reflections on Doris Humphrey’s The Art of Making Dances)
Dance Forum
Choreographies by Myra Beltran and Al Bernard Garcia
November 28-29, 2013
Quezon City
Review by Joelle Jacinto
The title of the show is rather long, but it does say all that it promises for this evening of dance. (Among friends, we’ve come to call it “The Myra and Al show”). In Myra Beltran’s offering for this year for Dance Forum, she opens up her copy of Doris Humphrey’s The Art of Making Dances, takes Al Bernard Garcia with her, and they analyze if what they’ve been doing is similar (or not) to what Doris Humphrey prescribes, how helpful (or not) this information is, and how it effects them from that moment on. But instead of just the two of them discussing it in a studio, they dance it out and share it with us, their audience.
I can’t speak for the rest of those who watched this, but I was very entertained by the exchange, despite some sections that appeared a bit contrived because Garcia was not responding quickly (therefore naturally) enough. But it’s a reenactment of a previous discussion, this is clear, and the dancing choreographed to this discussion did fit the pace of the exchange, and was often rather witty. I loved the part where they tried to dance out a work that Humphrey described and Beltran said, “Pretend that there other dancers behind us doing so-and-so…”
I also loved that it wasn’t a full-on agreement with Humphrey, with Garcia shrugging and saying, “I don’t do any of those things when I choreograph,” and it remaining unclear whether he would be following any of Humphrey’s advice. But as Beltran moves away from the written text and starts to share her experiences (through advice delivered via voice over), it seems that Garcia is finding this more valuable in his own exploration of choreographic work.
The rest of the program is a mix of old work and new. Beltran restages Fratres with Garcia, a work that premiered in 2002 and featured herself and Katherine Sanchez (now Trofeo), each strapped in a harness that hung from the ceiling. The unison had once displayed how Beltran and Sanchez moved as if one entity in two bodies; now with Garcia, the entire dynamic has changed, with the latter contrasting with Beltran, though they performed the exact same movements. It was riveting to see the subtle (and not so subtle) differences, and how Garcia embraced the work as if it were made for him.
What followed was a new work by Beltran, Girl with Rose Dress, a tribute to her former self as a young dancer, innocent and carefree, and only starting to experiment with movement. Her program notes share that she is realizing that “dip(ping) into this well of imagination” is good to refresh her choreographic vision. I appreciated the work as one of Beltran’s rare happy dances, and liked how tongue-in-cheek she performed, as well as her use of her gorgeous rose wine dress.
Garcia then featured a solo he composed for himself, Hymne L’Amour, which utilized several boxes as props and set, disappearing into the box and reappearing, fleshing out an interesting internal struggle that he wasn’t yet fully sharing with the audience. Now a theater artist more than a dancer, the theater influence is obvious on this work, but I would also want to see more experimentations with movement as he was relying on a vocabulary we’ve seen from him before; not that it’s not appealing movement, only that he may get stuck with just these movements and all his work will then look the same.
The evening ended with Pari Intervallo, also from Trace of a Trace, and also originally a duet between Beltran and Sanchez-Trofeo, now with Garcia. Again, the dynamic is different, and when they look at each other after their pulling efforts on the floor, you wonder if there is a spark of realization that refers to their first dance, if they’ve suddenly discovered the secret of the art of making dances. Or if they realized that this art is something they’ve had in their hearts all along.
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