AUDIENCE REVIEW: Kinesis Project dance theatre in "Search(Light)"
Company:
Kinesis Project dance theatre
Performance Date:
October 9, 2021
Freeform Review:
Search(light) by Kinesis Project dance theatre is like nothing I have ever seen before.
Not only was it a huge feat to have dancers on two coasts dancing together, but it was also extremely powerful and timely. This is the piece of COVID. This is the piece that I needed to see and feel in these times in particular. After nearly 2 years of COVID and separation and attempting to nurture half of our relationships through screens with Facetime and Zoom, Search(light) felt like a light shining down on our collective experience.
It started off feeling like a fascinating technological wonder - getting two coasts to dance with each other at the same time with audiences not only in both spaces live, but also all over the world via streaming is a completely new idea. As the dance went on, it became more about this thing we have all been going through for nearly two years - the idea of being alone together.
I have so few words, but I still remember the feeling. My heart wanted to explode. THIS! THIS is what I have been feeling! and I didn't even know it.
It was like watching the separation and togetherness that we all have been experiencing in very dramatic ways - deaths, weddings, births, love, family, all of it. It made me feel seen. It gave me a chance to grieve for lost real life connections I have been missing. It made me feel both deeply connected to the people and worlds that I love and miss, and still so very far away from all of them.
As I watched the dancers and imagined the audiences in each location, I could also feel all the people like myself - in their cozy pants, alone in a dark room, on a small laptop - so many squares, so many screens, so much connection and so much separation... and so much desire to break those barriers! All the while the dancers look as though they could reach out and maybe touch each other... maybe this time will be different... maybe we are closer than we think... I'm so alone... but we are all doing this together in this moment... maybe... there is hope here.
This work was amazing live - knowing the dancers were seeing one another and responding. It is still powerful and visceral after the fact. You can still watch it on Vashon Center for the Art's VCA TV, right now.
Author:
Zoe B. Levine
Website:
www.thethrivingbody.com
Photo Credit:
John C Robinson
