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Tania Perez-Salas Compania de DanzaNovember 2006 San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts by Renee Renouf |
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The Perez-Salas company of ten dancers, four men, six women testify that transnational dance has crossed south of Juarez, Tia Juana and the Rio Grande. The biographical notes indicated that Ms. Perez-Salas created quite a swath as a dancer before beginning her company in 1994, and that, subsequently, the ensemble has appeared in a wide variety of international festivals and concert venues. Seeing her bowing and smiling with the ensemble during the final curtain call, it was patent that Perez-Salas is a charismatic and gracious figure who feels a bond with her dancers, all of whom move beautifully and individually. The US has contributed four, Japan one, Venezuela one dancer to this Mexico City based company, which presents works redolent of atmosphere visually, if shy on meaning. The audience saw The Hours, Anabiosis and, following intermission, The Waters of Forgetfulness. The music supporting the dancers drew from the compositions of Vivaldi, Lully, Handel, Bach and more recent compositions by Part, Seeman, Danna y Soa and Bregovic. Perez-Salas is adept in making an impact with her well trained dancers. In the first the dancers were propelled across the stage clinging gracefully to a crude wheel depicting the hours; in the second the backs of three nude females undulated in cubicles one above another on stage left before a blackout permitted them to come forward and dance with the rest of the company. The Waters of Forgetfulness, executed in shallow water, was understandably the most captivating of the three works. The dancers were allowed the utmost display of the languor and voluptuous enjoyment chosen contact with water provokes in the human body, enhanced by the arcs and driblets of water stirred by their bodies and arching arm movements, as well as couples embracing in dream-like union.
Perez-Salas obviously is a choreographer thoroughly concerned with impulse in the female body and unafraid to assign full, expansive movement to express unhesitating emotion and desire at its fullest. Viva la difference is her creed, and it was wonderful to behold, even when she gave crucial space to the men in her company who also are no slouches or ciphers. I felt this accomplishment is a tribute to her south of the border heritage and I applaud this distinction. Now, however, I would like to see her express something with it besides this wonderful glimpse of a superior September Morn and wading in the water.
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