ARTSMONDAY: The Classical and Funky Meet at Dancers’ Viewpointe Showcase

On Friday night, on plain and bare black floors, before an intimate crowd of about 100 students and family seated in no-frills fold-out chairs, Harvard’s best student dancers dabbed away beads of sweat as they showcased a program of selected student choreography at Dancers Viewpointe V.

The weekend dance showcase was to be the last staged at the modest Riemann Center, since the Dance Program deservedly received a four-million dollar endowment to build a new dance space. And the Dance Program waved farewell to the Riemann in style.

When the lights first dimmed, the aptly-titled dance “Emergency” (choreographed by Jetta G. Martin ’05) hit the stage. Against a screen backdrop that urgently reflected a stark red light, maroon-sleeved dancers crowded the stage in movements that were alternately well-coordinate and disjointed. Whether or not the assumption and loss of uniformity was deliberate, the entire play proceeded and matched seamlessly the oblong and stacatta-driven notes of the soundtrack composition (written impressively by Patrick J. Bradley ’05). Although the dancers’ lack of coordination was fitting for the first part of the piece, the lack of synchronization seemed inappropriate at other points.

In fact, “Emergency”’s electronica was interrupted by a dissonant and jarring interlude. Militant beats reminiscent of “The Nutcracker”’s battle scene soundtrack flowed uneasily back and forth from the crash of the piece’s dominant electronica, which sounded more like high-speed traffic.

The awkward blend of the modern and the classical imbued the piece with a neomodernist ethos that instigated the tone for the entire program.

When the dancers did synchronize in “Emergency,” the result was a dance successful on a very funky and tongue-in-cheek level, creating a scene almost as colorfully bizarre and delightfully misfitting as a Gwen Stefani’s “Like a Rich Girl” video. Indeed, after mimicking moves similar to the Nutcracker’s march steps, the brunette dancers segued into a very modern and suggestive kick-step routine.

Following this exploratory composition, the Dance Program presented Elizabeth Bergmann’s “Saudades.” In another dance that combined the seemingly ill-fitting, three dancers, two clad in red dresses not inappropriate for salsa-dancing, performed a kind of stilted sexy salsa step while—not a meringue mix—but a classical piano soundtrack stuttered in the background.

The slowing down of such a usually-rhythmically fast-paced dance was not entirely successful here, as it seemed that the pirouettes sometimes seemed heavy-handed due to the unusually slow tempo of the dance. Here, dancing remarkably in the six of the program’s nine pieces, dancer Lauren E. Chin ’08 was notable for managing to consistently maintain a flowing grace, despite the slowed tempo of the Saudades “salsa.”

Providing a refreshingly upbeat break in the program was “Over,” choreographed by Sonia K. Todorova ’07 and set to the Libertango by Astor Piazzolla. Dancers dressed in oddly pinstriped costumes cut off at the knee appeared like primitive cavewomen as they writhed on the floors. The electronica-like soundtrack formed a deliciously appropriate background for the spunky dance, which at one point even featured one dancer deeply arching her back to form a table top while another slid suggestively under her back’s curvature. Again, the mix of the old and the new was the key to this dance’s vibrancy. In one scene, a dancer suggestively contorted her body and mimicked a convincing “Harlem butt shake” more appropriate for a club scene; in another, the move was offset by the less-edgy conclusion that featured the three dancers cutely gathering together as if they were participating in a child’s play.

But “Over,” was a rare fast-tempo break in the program, as more lilting slower pieces like “Dacey’s Memory” were set to rolling, soothing violin crescendos. Of course, just when the music became lulling, a sudden spark of energy in each dance would undoubtedly be unfurled. In “Dacey’s Memory,” this came in the form of dissonant piano notes that climaxed to a frustrated crash of chords and immediately caused a fall to silence in the soundtrack.

Perhaps the honor for most unusual piece of the night should go to Tina Tanhehco’s ’05 “Family Games,” which featured a rather obvious criticism of familial roles and an ode to the multi-tasking role of the mother. From start to finish, the dance was distinctive, even beginning in silence while two dancers, dressed like toddler twins in bright pastel floral smocks, encircled the stage in a heavy-footed soldier-step, looking like mirror images of each other. After outlasting a program of seven relatively demure acts with soberly colored costumes, the colorful beginning of “Family Games” jolted audiences to sit up in their seats.

The intriguing beginning led to a confusing set of antics that, if nothing else, certainly kept audiences curious. In one scene, woman presumably playing the children’s mother came to center stage in floral prints, only to be knocked down by her tennis-playing husband. Perhaps in a commentary on the complex family and career burdens on women, tennis balls flew across the stage as the exasperated mother futilely tried to control her children amid the chaos, eventually succumbing to being undressed by her children. In fact, by the end of the composition, all 4 dancers had managed to somehow find a reason to strip down to their stage underwear and sheer tops. Although not the most technically impressive piece of the night, “Family Games” certainly delivered the most provoking presentation.

The concluding piece, “Gemini,” ended the Dancers’ Viewpointe V on the note upon which it had begun. While a mellow reggae beat reminiscent of the “Banana Boat Song” played in the back, dancers in spring greens and lavenders truly embodied the earthy and simple funkiness that had characterized the laidback blending of the old and the new throughout the program.

—Reviewer Vinita M. Alexander can be reached at valexand@fas.harvard.edu.