33 Fainting Spells
September September’s central idea is that nostalgia is a trap, while paradoxically the piece’s central mode of expression is allusion to things past. In the course of the evening, choreographer-performers Dayna Hanson, Gaelen Hanson, Peggy Piacenza, and John Dixon go through a catalog of 20th-century popular culture: the Charleston, tap, and swing; the strobelike flickering of silent-era films; Rudy Vallee singing through a megaphone; Rudolph Valentino vamping; Chaplin’s mechanized movements in Modern Times; the mirror ball and upthrust arm of Saturday Night Fever; the back arched over the chair seat of Cabaret. But each of these gestures is isolated, the motion constantly interrupted so the dancers can sit at desks, yawn, cast out fishing lines, write on and tear up pieces of paper, and speak or sing or lip-synch into a bouquet of roses.
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Near the end there’s a serious dance of renunciation, a real “September Song” (allusion: Kurt Weill). But by then it’s too latewe’re worn out by a never-ending bit about writing a letter to one’s future self that’s left the stage strewn with paper. And in case by any mishap we’re touched by genuine emotion, phony leaves fall from the ceiling (allusion: The Fantasticks) to remind us that nothing is real (allusion: “Strawberry Fields Forever”). Then, while two of the performers sit with fishing poles and sing, the other two tap-dance behind them, carrying cardboard sun and clouds (allusion: Brecht, or maybe the inappropriate props carried by the chorus in “Springtime for Hitler”).
