F: Murderers Anonymous
My first impression of *F*, a new work by "Kokoro Dance":http://www.kokoro.ca/, presented in this year’s "Vancouver International Dance Festival":http://www.vidf.ca/, at the Roundhouse was a striking use of color and height, which the combination of Judy Nakagawa’s giant hanging sculpture and Cori Ohirko’s beautifully stark costume design certainly provide. My second impression was of the highlighted, rapid, molten phrases that Deanna Peters uses to move across the stage effortlessly; my eye was riveted to her every nuance. After that, I no longer knew where to look.
The stage composition always remains heavily stage right where three musicians and three actors remain seated through 99% of the performance. These six pull considerable focus; equal focus, if not often more, than dancers, Peters, Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi. Add to the mix, a woefully self-indulgent video and computer graphics design, by Paul Jason, which constantly demands attention, and you have near anarchy. Is it possible this is intentional by the creators? Perhaps, but I can’t help doubting.
Derived from Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein_, in *F*, Barbara Bourget (choreographer) and Elizabeth Dancoes (author) explore the before and after of badly maimed soldiers returning home from combat. Though the text poetically fluctuates between ‘the monster’ before he becomes a living collage of disparate body parts, and after, it seems to do little more than cycle between three states: rage, self-pity, and hysteria. Perhaps Dancoes’ intent was to provide a hypnotic meditation on one aspect of a potentially larger theme, but any effectiveness the text may achieve is unfortunately countered by the two dimensional delivery. Actors Corina Akeson, Elizabeth Dancoes, and Gardiner Millar, consistently deliver the script in a melodramatic and woe begotten manner, that after a while, makes it difficult to listen to, and yet because of sheer volume, remains impossible not to. They mostly lament, complain, curse and plead their way through an hour and fifteen minutes. After forty five minutes, I had the sensation I was witnessing a Murderers Anonymous session. Corina Akeson was a welcomed exception, who at times found subtlety and understatement in voice and both eye and finger plastiques.
Any idea of a little poetic license for the audience’s imagination is quickly thrown out the castle gates by Jason’s video and computer graphic design! Cycling, at a steady and monotonous pace, he gives us, with few exceptions, image after image of blood, wounds, soldiers, and monsters. In bright, plastic colors, that constantly nag and disappoint the eye, especially when our eye seeks a different perspective.
What is the point of using different mediums in a work, if they’re all doing the same thing?!! Which, in my mind, is a major problem with this piece: the designers, dancers, actors and musicians consistently take direct and literal impulse from each other, to the point of monotony. Violence with aggressive imagery, pain vocalized in the text with a pained expression in a dancer’s body or face. And musically, Crescendo with Crescendo, Diminuendo with Diminuendo. However that aside, and standing alone, musicians Tony Wilson, Peggy Lee and JP Carter are phenomenal. Tony Wilson’s hypnotic and jazzy composition really gets cooking, while JP Carter, on trumpet with occasional tasty processing and Peggy Lee, on cello, in particular, give absolutely scintillating performances.
Again though, where do I look? At times, absorbed by the musicians, I would remember there’s a dance going on and quickly return my gaze to the dancers, with the feeling that I might have missed something important. Of which moments, there were a few: basically whenever Peters comes out from the pack. As principle dancers, Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi just don’t match Peters’ presence here.
The matter is not helped by Gerald King’s lighting design which boldly lights through what seems like no more than five or six beautiful cues in total; but with such minimalist lighting, and with so many performers, focus is crucial. Otherwise, the audience doesn’t sit down to a feast; they sit down to a hot dog eating contest. Of all the elements competing for attention, lighting, ironically, sits this one out.
With some interesting ideas and featuring obvious talent,*F* ultimately lacks direction. As a result, the piece is unfocused and the important and intriguing theme of wounded and pieced together soldiers attempting to return home, feels arbitrarily and superficially explored.
In my opinion, every critique requires the assumption of a question mark at the end of every critical phrase written; a question directed to the creators. However the form rarely allows it. I realize that this has been a very traditional review with a barking and judgmental tone but when such an iconic company as Kokoro Dance leaves their audience so obviously in the lurch, the lack of imagination which results, beckons it.
_F was created by Kokoro Dance and was part of this year’s Vancouver International Dance Festival. For more information go_ "here":http://www.vidf.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=31