BWW Reviews: Seeking Harmony in the Art of Activism

The American Museum of Natural History's Milstein Hall of Ocean Life swelled with aesthetic activism in choreographer Karole Armitage's On the Nature of Things on Friday, March 27 at 8 pm. Billed as a site-specific collaboration between Armitage, the museum, and Stanford University biologist and MacArthur fellow Paul Erhlich, the work's focus alternated between "harmony and chaos" as introduced by Armitage.

Erhlich's original text accompanied the movement - inspired from his essay about the culture gap or dichotomy of technical knowledge to visceral understanding in recent scientific practice (of which Armitage sought to close a similar gap in contemporary dance). Both Erhlich and Armitage's welcoming remarks suggested ambivalence with the scope of this work; Erhlich even said, "we'll just see", and so the evening began. Combined with movement in a setting designated for tactile education, On the Nature of Things depicted a frenetic doom.

The performance arena consisted of two sections (multiple sources stated there would be three stages, with audience members moving around the dancing, although one can only write about what one saw), one long rectangular marley floor underneath the belly of a life-size whale replica and a square marley floor to one corner. Audience sat on either side of the length of the large floor. Performers entered from all four corners, darting from the dark, their reflections catching the glass display cases to create the sense of hundreds of bodies.

In burnt orange leotards, Armitage's dancers attacked the work. Twenty-two dancers joined the company of eight, in addition to children from Manhattan Youth Ballet. Megumi Eda and Christian Laverde Konig's duet illustrated elements of Armitage's movement language. Mainly, sudden drops of the body into a parallel grand plié or a développé into an arabesque extended diagonally from the hip. The quick, deep pliés diverted the high-riding tension throughout the evening. The use of forceful speed and tension starkly contrasted to the grand, still, marine setting.

Armitage's softer moments included a dancer hovering a hand over another's body - hand, knee, shoulder - much like a child determined to pet an animal but considering the outcomes. Also, the placing of a head in another's palm or the touching of fingers, which maintained a peculiar tension. The youngest dancers appeared briefly and at the end, with duets between child and adult for a circle of life reference. But mostly, Armitage's dancers seemed as mercenaries prepared for war in their stone-faced race of an evening. In the middle of the program, dancers alternated running towards another dancer with a shove for which the impact was audible. Even the harmonious junctures carried a solemn gravity as in the final moments when the entire cast looked up at the belly of the whale suspended above them.

Photo by Denis Finnin.

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