[dance]
Just dance Letting loose when the fourth wall crumbles by Jamie Rogers
For the duration of the five-minute episode, this When I say I like art, what I mean is I’m interested in creative labors like painting, chainsaw art, was torture. My thoughts about what we sounded and looked like prevented me from even trying. My folk music and scratch cooking. Modern dance performances, however, had until nightmare, I thought. All I could muster was some recently failed to stir much in me. In my admittedly vague chirping sounds, humming and choked nervlimited experience, I have been nonplussed by what ous laughter. When it was over, the relief was only momentary, appears to be mostly rolling, wiggling and somerand almost immediately a new thought floated in: I’m saulting. I don’t get it. What really does that mean? So when last week I attended You and Me, the trav- an ass. Sitting as a member of an audience in a theater, eling performance piece by Colorado-based dancer and choreographer Tara Rynders, my enthusiasm was tem- there is a distance between you and the performpered. I was told the show would be interactive, which ance that is convenient and safe and gives you permade a novice like me an ideal patron, if not a terrified one. I was told that it would take place in the home of Bare Bait Dance Company Artistic Director Joy French and that it would undoubtedly be very modern dance-y. And so, when the performance began and the dancers, dressed in loose-fitting monochromatic dresses, began rolling in the sliver of photo courtesy of William Munoz grass beside French’s You and Me provides intimate dance performances that involve the home as the 30 or so audience. audience members stood watching from the sidewalk, my heart sank, and a mission to play critic without personal investment. Being a part of the performance, however, provides thought floated in: Ugh. After a prologue that had the audience follow no such comfort. When you don’t like the show, you the performers as they danced around the Westside, have only yourself to judge. Singing with Humienik the meat of the show began. Individual audience seemed unbearable while it was happening, but afmembers were asked to follow a treasure map— terward all I could think about was my lame unwilldrawn by local actor Jeff Medley who shares French’s ingness to make silly, improvised music with home—to meet dancers in locations around the another person. My last stop for the evening was with the event’s neighborhood. My map and schedule, each delivered in personalized envelopes, instructed me to organizer, Rynders. I met her in the field behind Lowmeet privately with six performers over the course ell Elementary, and without saying a word she handed me headphones, which were connected to of two hours. Some of the one-on-one sessions were innocu- an iPod on her wrist. She pressed play. “Hi, Jamie,” a recording of her voice said. It asked ous, the experience a little muddled by pragmatics. Like my first session, wherein a blind-folded Joy if I wanted to dance. It was a rock song I didn’t recognize. I began to French was tied to a tree like a marionette. You pulled on her strings to make her arms and legs move. The do the only dance move I do: tapping feet beneath ropes were tangled though, and I don’t think the peo- gyrating hips (I’ve often been told I don’t move my ple in attendance were prepared to pull hard enough upper body enough). I was eager to engage this time, to let myself go a bit. to really make French dance. The choruses were big emotive crescendos and Other sessions, however, were powerful in ways I have never so acutely experienced while taking in we moved in circles, sometimes exchanging grins, sometimes twirling away from one another. At one an art show. At 7:50, my schedule told me to meet Patrycja point I spun too quickly and the headphone jack Humienik in the garage behind French’s home. We popped out of the iPod. We scrambled, laughing stood alone on the concrete floor, and she gestured breathlessly to plug me back in. A car slowed as it passed on Phillips Street so the for me to touch my palms to hers. kids in the backseat could watch. I waved and they “Will you hum with me?” she asked. I nodded, and we began humming. After a few laughed. I stopped paying attention when the music seconds, Humienik began making other sounds— came back, but surely they cheered as we returned melodic whoops and swoons—and the purpose of to dancing. the session became clear: We were writing and performing a song together. arts@missoulanews.com
missoulanews.com • June 13 – June 20 , 2013 [21]