Saturday, October 02, 1999
DANCE REVIEW
Hours fly as dancers stretch
BY CAROL NORRIS
Enquirer contributor
Contemporary Dance Theater opened its 27th season at the Aronoff Center Friday with a dance work that plays out like a musical-theater piece. The Joe Goode Performance Group elicits laughs and tears with the touching Deeply There (stories of a neighborhood).
Seldom will you see a contemporary dance company tackle a full-evening work. Ballet companies have been doing them for years, able to fill in the slow spots with elaborately costumed group dances. Contemporary dance, with its focus on personal points of view, often presents dancers barefoot and unadorned. It's a brave soul who attempts to make a fully realized work with such raw materials.
Joe Goode has made a dance that's rich and fully entertaining — and the shortest two hours spent in the theater in a long time.
Frank (Mr. Goode) is trying to cope with losing his lover, Ben, to AIDS. We never see Ben; he's represented by a bed that's wheeled on and off.
What we do see is a cast of characters involved in the unfolding story. Joyce (Liz Burritt) is Ben's uptight, homophobic sister, unable to handle this “lewd” relationship. Imelda (Vong Phrommala) is the selfish, self-centered drag queen, Maurico (Felipe Barrueto Cabello) is Ben's son from an early marriage and Terri (Cincinnati native Marc Morozumi) is the fastidious and overbearing best friend.
The original score, written by Robin Holcomb, has a folksy-blues quality. Melancholy and lovely, the music is on tape, but the performers' singing is live. There's an old joke that dancers don't speak, much less sing, but these sing beautifully.
All the usual human frailties are exposed through humorous song and dance numbers. Frank's self-pitying “I Like My Dark Hole” turns into a finger-snapping do-wop with three back-up singers. Imelda's obsession with dress-ups gets a full-cast staging of “Jackie O.” — with everyone decked out in neat little Chanel suits and pill box hats to match. And before Ben's death breaks your heart, the two antagonists, Frank and Joyce, dance an hilarious drunken duet.
By the end Joyce has had an epiphany and lets go of her old, “hard feelings.” She and Imelda become the best of buds, promising to be attentive pen pals.
In spite of the work's humor, the story is touching and moving. Mr. Goode uses dance in a stylized way, getting to the heart of an issue with simple, direct movements. It's an intelligent blending of dance, music and words that results in a coherent play. Nothing's missed; you're never lost in trying to figure out some hidden meaning.
Mr. Morozumi has grown into the potential he showed often in Cincinnati as a young performer here. He's remarkably skilled in the spare, crisp style of Mr. Goode's. The entire company showed a wonderful range of abilities.
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