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IMPRESSIONS OF: Eryc Taylor's "The Exhibit"

By Deirdre Towers/Follow @deirdre.towers on Instagram
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Published on October 21, 2015
Timothy Patterson; Photo: Handlebar Media

Venue: The Alchemical Theatre Laboratory
October 15, 2015
Choreographer: Eryc Taylor
Dancers: Caroline Brethenoux, Camille Workman, Jessica Aronoff, Timothy Patterson, Samuel Asher Kunzman, and Jessica Featherson
Music: Salomon Lerner, Frieda Abtan

If we could scratch an itch inaccessible to our fingers, what would that look like? Could we erase an ache, a cramp, or simply escape something calling for our attention from deep within by stretching in all directions and then writhing? Eryc Taylor choreographs his near naked, perfectly toned, supple dancers with a cat’s sinuousness, a child’s delight in creepy insects, and, most interestingly, with an explorer’s intensity. When his dancers elongate their arms and legs, and then release, their bodies seem to breathe in slow undulations.

Camille Workman and Jessica Aronoff in The Hunt; Photo by Handlebar Media

Two of the five pieces performed in the small narrow studio space of The Alchemical Theatre Laboratory suggest his bravura. The Hunt, involving four women and one man, culminates with a man, Timothy Patterson, crowning a woman with a feather, metallic headdress. Whether the dance implied a hunt for a victim or victor was unclear, but the strength of the women’s jumps, the clever weaving of their paths, left the residue of an image of something exploding from the center. The Time featured a blood splattered Patterson whose black gloved hands revealed and covered his bared teeth that would have extended into fangs, should this had been a special effects film.  Patterson drags us into a horror zone.

The closing trio called The Box choreographed by Taylor in collaboration with Jesus Olivera to a commissioned score by Salomon Lerner, features Caroline Brethenoux, Camille Workman and Jessica Aronoff moving provocatively and slightly menacingly. They were ‘working it’ as we say.

Caroline Brethenoux in The Hunt; Photo by Rachel Neville

According to the program, “Eryc Taylor Dance, founded in 2006, seeks to find, explore and execute new points of view and combine varied styles of dance on and off pointe.” As with many artists, Taylor has probably more a singular POV, rather than the aspired multiple, given that his vocabulary and score choices were so similar throughout the program. His costuming was consistent, black or buff colored bra and panties, drawing our focus to accessories - black glove, metallic headdress, or mouth and nose masks. His dancers are very strong, Workman being especially memorable.