© Steve DiBartolomeo 'Pleasant Looking Woman' reviews recent ODC reviews more Renee Renouf reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

Nelson has recently discovered the intricacies of Johann Sebastian Bach. Using the Cello Suite,No. 6 and four dancers she reflected every trill and ornament in the score with something from her vast repertoire of head, foot or hand gestures, rendering the sonority of JSB’s composition a trifle on the quirky side, emphasizing busyness.

Way, on the other hand, tackled the implications of 9/11 under the title A Pleasant Looking Woman in Sensible Clothes to a score by David Lang. In this premiere Way’s details included skeletal sets and the entire company; the former including a door which opened and closed and is remembered as having something of a high threshold. Way has a capacity to pick up on the random and the simultaneous which never seem to cohere in a unifying statement. I also feel the length of her choreographic development is dictated by the musical choice; sometimes, alas, it stretches the content thin.

Following intermission K.T. Nelson set Private Freeman, Gerry Brady and Quilet Rarang in a piece called Hunting and Gathering, The music, by Brian Eno and David Byrne, seemed less important than the hyper-alert rendition by the trio, an awareness making one think the three at times traded places at times with the hunted.

Rarang was a revelation of technical strength and clarity; I’ve never seen such a naturally emphatic quatrieme position in demi-plie. Her movement has a distinctly natural quality but when she was in that position I felt I was gazing at Gibraltar. Brady and Freeman were equally impressive in a piece demanding the utmost of their strength and abilities to shift direction and mood.

Way’s final contribution, again for the entire company, was a premiere titled Origins of Flight,utilizing the collated score music of Heinrich Biber, Arcangelo Corelli and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. Way utilizes classical vocabulary, admiring its linear and structural qualities more openly and easily than Nelson. The entire company exhibits classical training as a healthy component to its overall style.

I was less entranced at the program than reflective of the overall arc of ODC’s evolution and some of the incredible dance artists who have peopled the ensemble. Some days soon, when Way’s administrative talents are not too dominated by projects, maybe ODC will have either a company reunion or a repertory retrospective. What a treat that would be.