Chicago Moving Company
The first piece is the evening’s most emotional. Duplicate, choreographed to New Age icon Moby by Cindy Brandle and danced by Brandle, Elizabeth Lentz, and Mindy Meyers, features a stage bathed in blue light and dancers moving as if underwater–or, more likely, afloat in amniotic fluid. They turn in slow motion, they lie in the fetal position, they partner as if wrapping one another in swaddling clothes. The effect is wonderfully moving, and yet I kept wondering why a return to the womb should be so profoundly appealing. “September 11?” I scribbled, though the work predates the attack. Most striking is the way these strong and agile dancers are employed so gingerly, as though a full touch from any of them would shatter their partners–and their audience.
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There’s no lack of emotion in Slip, all of it agonizing. Perhaps this dance is meant to answer the question, What do we have to be so stressed about? It’s an ambitious work, but one that takes a little too long to get to its point.
