REVIEW: “Somewhere Between,” FLOCK & Artists at the Dance Center of Columbia College

“Somewhere Between,” image courtesy the artists and the Dance Center of Columbia College, 2023. Photo by Michelle Reid.

REVIEW
“Somewhere Between”
FLOCK & Artists
Dance Center of Columbia College
1306 S Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605
March 23 - March 25, 2023

By Michelle Kranicke

A white marley floor and white backdrop provide the stark setting for Flock and Artists Somewhere Between performed this past weekend at the Dance Center of Columbia College. The dance opens with a female solo dancer beginning downstage right while the others stand around her on the stage. Her luscious deep lunges, supple arm movements and leg extensions soon bring the rest of the ensemble into the work, each dancer introduced with a saturated spot of colored light. For the next 65 minutes the work slips in and out of a series of duets, trios, quintets and full ensemble all danced superbly by Alice Klock, Florian Lochner, Liane Aung, Robert Rubama, Kevin Shannon and Emily Krenik.

In the first striking quintet dancers connect, break apart and reconnect, creating distinct patterns and shapes while a second quintet later in the work evokes images of children at play and sibling rivalry. A male duet is an opportunity to explore affection and playful competition while a female trio showcases strength and support through intricate and ever-changing choreographic partnering.

“Somewhere Between,” image courtesy the artists and the Dance Center of Columbia College, 2023. Photo by Michelle Reid.

Throughout the piece this group of dancers elegantly and seamlessly move in and out and through each other offering arms, legs, torsos, heads and shoulders to catch weight, travel through space and unleash dynamic phrases of weaving limbs and bodies. Each section offered an ever more complicated mass of physical interlacing and intertwining, and the moments of unison dancing presented a joyful respite coupled with a renewed desire to witness another series of organically intricate dance phrases. Julie Ballard’s excellent lighting shifted with each section reflecting off the white surfaces, bathing the performers in color and giving the entire stage an ethereal otherworldly feel. The piece came to a quiet end with the dancers lying together in a diagonal line after a wonderfully varied exploration of movement relationships.

In arriving just at the start of the performance I did not have an opportunity to read the program notes. After the performance I learned that Somewhere Between “unpacks how memory and imagination play into our realities of self” and “drawing from myths or childhood stories we have woven a physical and vibrant story that explores eternal truths around identity, joy and the sense of belonging.”

“Somewhere Between,” image courtesy the artists and the Dance Center of Columbia College, 2023. Photo by Michelle Reid.

While those may have been verbal cues and jumping off points to develop movement phrases in the rehearsal process, none of that was visible in the final work and I am wondering why the choreographers chose to place such a heavy descriptive or philosophical burden on the dance. The movement and the dancers’ excellent performance of that movement was enough. Later in the program notes the choreographers ask the viewers to “sit back and absorb this unique journey” that there is “no one right interpretation” and encourage one to approach the work with “no self judgement.” If we are to take them at their word my question would be why offer the explanation? And also, why self judgement? I am not sure what that prompt means for the viewer and how it is relevant to this piece which stands so successfully on its own. If the goal is to create a piece that has no interpretation why try to frame one in the program notes? Dance can be an amazing, open, very personal way of engaging with questions or challenges or pleasures, but I always wonder if it can truly tell a story, especially one so dense and knotty. Dance itself may fare best when presented without explanation and prompts. Mysterious and elusive, not easily deciphered, and sometimes just simply about its physicality — that is its enduring allure and joy.

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