Photo by Paula Lobo
THE AMANDA SELWYN INTENTION:
Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre’s production Five Minutes is a stunning physical experiment with the concept of time. The show was divided into ten 5-minute segments, with a 5-minute break in the middle (hardly enough to get up and stretch; not enough to use the facilities!) – and each portion, including the break itself, was characterized by a different emotional atmosphere. This fluctuation was meant to illuminate the malleability of our perceptions of temporality, as the apparent length of each piece varied with the mood (although the actual duration never really changed).
On top of the emotional experimentation, Amanda Selwyn threw in a series of physical and digital twists. Her use of digital technology, whether it was the large clock counting down from 5:00 repeatedly, the text rolling across the screen with statements such as “the future hasn’t happened yet,” or the disembodied images of the dancers floating across the background, the effect was an eerie sense of time overlapping. This was furthered by the repetition of certain movements and, in the case of It’s Seductive, the sexy tango towards the end, entire combinations, throughout the show.
There were no pauses in the production, meaning no time for applause, so the awkward moments of transition (where the audience was clearly uncomfortable with not being able to express their appreciation of the performance) were only punctuated by the time-defying costume changes, as dancers disappeared off stage one second and before you had a chance to pick up your hands to clap, they were back on stage, in completely different outfits!
Photo by Paula Lobo
THE MELISSA ROUSE EXPERIENCE: The atmosphere of the evening was initiated by my discovery, upon arriving, of the personalized reserved seating sign, announcing to all potential seat thieves that C1 and C2 belonged to me – so derrieres off! However, this giddy feeling of narcissism was quickly overwhelmed by the general atmosphere of anticipation brought on by the HUGE projection of a countdown clock on the stage. As we all waited anxiously for the show to begin, the ticking down of the seconds seemed to keep the audience quiet – there was little to no pre-show buzz of conversation.
Once the dancers came onto the stage, however, the mood quickly shifted to that of the opening piece. Although the atmosphere of the actual performance shifted between funky, sassy, quirky and sentimental as it progressed through each five-minute segment, for me, the primary sentiment was nostalgia. Having been a dancer in a past life (pre-college, pre-writing, pre-InsideNewYork), it reminded me of everything I loved and miss about the world of dance. Amanda Selwyn is a master at illustrating the symbiosis of sound and movement, the romance of motion and emotion – she had me laughing, crying, cringing and gasping all in the short 55-minute production.
And as a final twist in my own experience with the performance, it truly worked to transport me back in time, across reality, and into a parallel world where I was dancer, not writer. However, I had to come back at the end of the show, with nothing but the bitter-sweet after taste of my tango with temporality still lingering on my tongue.
-Melissa Rouse
1 Comment | Posted on June 25, 2011 | Categories: Event-Related, From the Blog
This sounds great! I’ll try and check it out tonight.