Cappelletti Reviews? Vicki in the USA

Modern dance in the US has been primarily a movement driven by the idiosyncratic vision of choreographers. A family tree has sprouted from the rejection or extension of the work of a previous generation. As a result, audiences over here have most often endured full evenings of choreography by one person: evenings of a single movement style or choreographic vision. If you like the aesthetic, then great; if not, well then you're stuck. To my mind this is where Rambert Dance Company is so successful in providing an opportunity to spend an evening at the theatre seeing a variety of different dances, some by choreographers with whom you are familiar, others that are new to you? You might not like everything you see, but chances are you will enjoy or appreciate something.

With just these ideas in mind Jim Cappelletti, a graduate student at the Ohio State University, has put together a repertory company and presented a concert which spans nearly twenty-five years of modern dancemaking. With a mind to reaching the novice dance audience, Cappelletti chose to kick off with a short black and white documentary contextualizing the evening's proceedings. As well as enlightening the uninitiated, the film displayed humour and a genuine will on the part of those interviewed to share their enthusiasm for dance with the audience.

The choreography presented was certainly varied. We were shown flippant trifles, solemn evocations and explorations in form and movement. Between each piece more black and white footage rolled in order to whet our appetites and to explain the choreographer's intent. This provided a safety net for any audience member who might normally worry about what it 'means', or think they might not 'get it', but it also circumscribed the individual's engagement with the work. "How can I respond to the dance when I have already been told what it means?" I don't know the answer to that question, but I was certainly pleased to be forced into entering the debate.

The programme opened and closed with works more overtly concerned with pure movement than expression. Ciona dates from 1973 when it was created collaboratively by the company Pilobolus. This was acrobatic Star Trek on stage. In shiny silver unitards the 6 dancers balanced and cantilevered, rippled and span, braced, frog-squatted and jogged in clearly defined spatial arrangements to a collection of sound effects and futuristic gloopy spangle music. I laughed quietly, unsure of the humour. More certain am I that this piece placed great demands on the performers and, aside from a couple of shaky moments, it was very well executed. The closing work was a solo for Cappelletti, although he spoke of it in the introduction as a duet with the large circular sculpture after which the dance is named. Circle Walker shifts from primal to industrial, expressive to abstract, insouciant to precarious. Centre stage, legs spread astride the sculpture held firm with wide-armed grip, the dancer is revealed as the lights come up - daVinci's Man in three dimensions. The percussive music throbs and the dancer quivers. The head turns sharply: man is caged but also hunted. His weight shifts and the circle walker rocks. We know that soon man and machine will move as one and are caught in anticipation. As the dance progresses we are treated to a display of precarious poetry as Cappelletti threads and swings over and through the rolling apparatus. Lofty moments of suspension contrast with deep inversions. Monkey agility registers in my mind only to be replaced fractionally later by thoughts of weightless astronauts. Just as I'm thinking conjoined twins, the duo separate - dancer tosses the circle walker from downstage right to far upstage left. With rapidity it rocks its way across the stage but man is already there to catch it nonchalantly with one hand. The dance dwindles with the light leaving the male figure and apparatus once again enmeshed.

Cappelletti made an astute programming decision to end with this work. The sheer virtuosity of the piece guaranteed a positive reception. Indeed, on Saturday the audience awarded a lavish standing ovation.

Some of the other work shown, Plum Tarts by Alison Tipton, Susan Van Pelt's Carpe Diem and Passing by OSU faculty member Susan Hadley contained more overtly expressive subject matter and our interpretation (I use the singular advisedly) was largely dictated by the preceding film clips.

By way of contrast Partial, choreographed last year by graduate student Angie Hauser provided plenty of scope for interpretation, engaging my interest on many levels. This brief trio begins downstage with a sequence of clearly executed gestures: wiping, smoothing and looking. The trio start to move through space using a clean, rather spare vocabulary. Danced to an accompaniment by Bach, it all seems serious and controlled when Cappelletti moves backwards and bumps into Hauser! And it was going so well! But no, then Hauser bumps into the third dancer Gina Jacobs and we laugh with relief. The movement becomes more arbitrary, quirky and surprising, shattering the unity and the clarity of form of the opening moments as the music hops along the radio dial. The movement is perplexing and funny and beautifully executed, and before there is time to really take this all in, Bach is back. Having traversed the space the dancers have relocated in the upstage corner. The opening gestural sequence is repeated, and then a few more times getting faster. It is finished.

Cappelletti's concert was a bold experiment in a culture dominated by the choreographer-led dance company. In watching I was reminded again of the inherent difficulties in maintaining a full-time company of dancers capable of faithfully performing a variety of works forged from different modern techniques and different conceptual bases. This is a tricky path that Rambert has negotiated with varying degrees of success during its history as a modern dance company and one which I hope other modern dance companies might choose to tackle in the future for the sake of a lively and diverse dance culture.