Divamensch

Melody and I saw *William Forsythe: A Quiet Evening of Dance* at The Shed on 10/15/19.  I hadn't heard of Forsythe before, but I've been trying to see more dance and this sounded promising.

 

The whole evening was an examination of how dance interacts with music and sounds.  It started with a dance for a man and a woman, done to recorded birdsong.  The two dancers seemed to be dancing independently most of the time, with occasional moments of connection, each of which had an impact.  Melody thought at times the male dancer was the shadow of the female dancer.

 

The next piece was for two female dancers, with no sound or music.  It started with them dancing only from the waist up, often doing the same movement but out of synch.  Eventually they bent their knees, then moved around, then moved around quite a lot.  Melody noticed some ballet references in this piece, which were often ironic.  And amusing.

 

The third piece was done to a set of piano pieces by Morton Feldman.  The music was abstract and spare, and the dancing wasn't tied to the music in an apparent way.  I found myself watching the dance in a different way, due to the music.  This piece was the first that featured the audience favorite, Rauf "Rubber Legz" Yasit.  He's the dancer with the mustache and long orange gloves in this preview. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His movements were so different from the other dancers, so different from anything I had seen before.  The audience was crazy for him.

 

The second half was a piece for all of the dancers, done to orchestral music by Rameau, one of the masters of the French baroque.  It felt like the choreographer saying, "I can do this too!"  The rhythm of the dancing wasn’t usually directly rooted in the rhythm of the music, though a cadence in the music was often echoed in the dance. This changed in the final movement, when the dance was precisely timed to the music. That was an interesting progression.

 

"Rubber Legz" had a solo in this piece that had a wonderful sense of tension and momentum. I would love to see more from him, and definitely more from the choreographer.

 

 

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