Related Features
IMPRESSIONS: Raquel Almazán “La Paloma Prisoner” at Chelsea Factory
IMPRESSIONS: "Here Now" Presented by LaneCoArts and Abarukas at Peridance Capezio Center
IMPRESSIONS: The Living Earth Show and Post:ballet present Lyra at 92Y
By Cecly Placenti
View Profile |
More From This Author
Published on January 7, 2025
Richard Termine
The Living Earth Show: Travis Anderson (guitars) Andy Meyerson (percussion)
Music: Samuel Adams
Directors: Robin Dekkers, Vanessa Thiessen, Benjamin Tarquin
Choreographer: Vanessa Thiessen with contributions from the dance artists
Cinematography: Benjamin Tarquin
Dancers: Babatunji Johnson, Emily Hansel, Moscelyne ParkeHarrison, Mia J. Chong, Colleen Loverde, Anthony Pucci, Cora Cilburn, Landes Dixon, Travis Anderson, Andy Meyerson, Charmaine Butcher, Caitlin Hicks, Jenna Marie, Christian Squires
December 14, 2024
The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is Greek mythology’s most frequently told story, appearing in works of literature, art, and more recently, video games and a Netflix comedy series. Orpheus uses music to persuade Hades, ruler of the Underworld, to free his beloved wife, Eurydice. It is a saga of tragedy and loss, but also of hope, faith and the power of art. The Living Earth Show’s Lyra emphasizes this power by harmoniously weaving together the digital and physical world through a seamless integration of dance, film and live music.
From their first note, percussionist Andy Meyerson and guitarist Travis Andrews conjure magic. Atmospheric tones surround the audience on all sides as the walls of Buttenweiser Hall at the 92Y disappear and a space much bigger and more mysterious manifests. Samuel Adams’s score melds jazz, EDM, and Philip Glass-esque vibes with metallic squelching sounds. It’s an aural experience that straddles reality and fantasy, and serves as the score for a dance film shot outdoors in Eastern California. Rather than crafting a traditional made-for-theater performance and dropping it into the natural landscape, choreographer Vanessa Thiessen makes inventive, rigorous use of the terrain, turning challenges into gorgeous movement choices. The performers in San Francisco’s Post:ballet dance in hiking books that kick up clouds of dust. They ricochet off boulders and hold swaths of fabric that float in the wind. Versatile and captivating, the dancers move between the meticulous, exacting technique of contemporary ballet and the space-eating weightiness of modern dance. They are athletic and precise despite the uneven ground beneath their feet- sometimes a forest floor, sometimes desert sand or the rocky shores of a lake. Cora Cliburn’s Hades pays tribute to Martha Graham in a more contemporary interpretation of her powerful technique, fluidly moving through a series of postures that signify strength and authority. Emily Hansel as Atropos, the Fate whose name means “inflexible,” is anything but. Her spine moves like an angry serpent as she undulates in silhouette at the mouth of a cave.
While the story is linear and easy to follow, it is the use of rotating camera angles, drone footage, and ambient surround sound that make the production feel immersive. As the performers on screen squint in the sun shining off their metallic costumes, I feel as if I am also outdoors at midday. When Eurydice (Moscelyne ParkeHarrison) falls into the river Styx upon her death, an underwater camera catches her gossamer dress as it floats and suspends in the water, and we feel her weightlessness. Orpheus, (Babatunji Johnson) accompanied by Andrews’s mournful guitar, performs a gut-wrenching solo in the sand, his torso writhing and contracting in despair. As the camera illuminates close-up shots of his back and chest, his pain is magnified rather than merely witnessed. That is the power of dance on film- its singular ability to pull viewers into the action, bring it closer, amplify small movements that portray the most vulnerablity and expressive power. Aside from a few odd framing moments in which we see more sky above the performers heads than we see their actions, Benjamin Tarquin’s cinematography achieves a sense of absorption that only dance film can create. However, I did question the choice of a particularly long section filmed mostly as a wide shot in which Cliburn and Lades Dixon (Persephone) dance without many camera cuts or perspective shifts, which was different than the rest of the film, the purpose of that choice not easily discernible.
The use of technology in post-production also adds elements impossible to achieve in live work. During a lively section of ensemble dancing, the Underworld Beings jump and frolic, momentarily suspending in the air or appearing in slow motion, warping time and reminding us that while this landscape might look familiar, it is not of this world. However, there is still nothing like the power of dance performed live, as Johnson reminds us in Lyra’s surprising conclusion. He suddenly runs out onto the stage in person and throws himself to the floor, leaving the mythical world behind and returning to the present. His ensuing solo is a rapturous embroilment with gravity. He thrashes and suspends, his body arresting and dangling in impossible arrangements as if from invisible threads that tether him to earth. He moves boneless, like water, and like a vortex we are sucked in. The immense atmosphere Andrews and Meyerson created over the course of an hour suddenly narrows, zeroing in on the space around Johnson’s ecstatic form. In silence his movements grow calm and steady as we watch him wrestle with, and finally accept, his failure and his fate.
