Page 173 - Demo

K T T \\ /i l l AG i m m i c k s D a m p e n ' W a v e ' T a l e n tD ancer M ichael C larke perform s %u201c No Fire E scape in H e ll.%u201d (Tom Brazil Photo)'Angels' Hi-Tech Heaven FarBeautiful DanceNeeds NoWig And ApronBY JUDITH STUARTMichael Clark & Company, the firstBritish dance group included in the NextWave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy ofMusic, made its American debut in theLepercq Space last Tuesday, October 21.Michael Clark has garnered a mass ofdescriptive titles in his short history as achoreographer and performer of his ownworks. %u201cThe world%u2019s first punk balletdancer%u201d is one. %u201cA whacked-out Nijinsky%u201dand %u201cThe gilded hero of a younger generation, with the charisma of Nureyev and Nijinsky and the ambiguous sex appeal ofMick Jagger in the %u201960s,%u201d are others.Michael Clark, the dancer, is a beautifulpiece of work. He moves with the highlypolished capabilities of a lead ballet dancer(a fate he has declined), as well as with theexpressive fluidity and freedom usuallyassociated with modem dance. His company is comprised of gifted dancers butnone of them was put to the task of developing and sustaining a compositional whole.The evening was more a series of shortvignettes clustered around the apparentthemes of %u201cNo Fire Escape in Hell.%u201dThe ballet was divided into two acts:%u201cThen,%u201d and %u201cNow Gods.%u201d %u201cNo Fire Escapein Hell%u201d was, immediately noted, an apt title %u2014 as soon as the unnecessarily loud,driving music began, the desire for escapefrom the ordinarily pleasant environment ofthe Lepercq Space was manifest bymembers of the audience who either wereover 30, or had hopes of preserving the fullrange of their auditory powers past thatnight.Before the curtain went up, the openingnight audience was informed that the computer system had failed and the lights werenot as originally planned by designerCharles Atlas. Although it would have beeninteresting to see the intended plan, nothingin the ballet seemed to have been negatively affected by its absence.%u201cThen%u201d was dominated by a frantic,piecemeal quality that, nonetheless, showedoff some good dancing. The assault on theears remained unrelenting as dancers inpunk haircuts and inventive costumes madeobvious portrayals of a hell replete with amultitude of phallic symbols. Clark, garbedfor one scene in a blond curly wig and afrilly white apron which only barelycovered the front of his otherwise nudebody, was attacked by a pair of Englishbobbies who, with a machete, removed arubber representation of his manhood.Another set of costumes consisted of naturalcolored unitards with genitals painted on.All the dancers wore black lipstick and, atone time or another, danced through an exfronrHinnrv arrav nf PAotiimac%u201cNow Gods%u201d was a more successfuldance episode. The opening sequence had,oddly enough, a combined spirit ofmedieval and futuristic times, and felt moreBY ARTHUR KROEBEROne of the striking things about PingChong%u2019s %u201cThe Angels of Swedenborg,%u201dwhich played in the Brooklyn Academy ofMusic%u2019s Carey Playhouse last week, was thetriteness of the imagery. Winged creatureswith placid-faced feminine masks, Chong%u2019sangels swirl through the heavenly cloudbank of popular mythology (the clouds inthis case being made of white turkeyfeathers).There is an ethereal, slow-motion beautyabout the piece, which is performed by 11members of Chong%u2019s Fiji Company. Alsoauuic iauiuui. uic oiigeis, who uress in wiiaiappears to be grey homespun, are complemented by three rather mysteriousspirits, all in white and closely resemblingthe reptilian characters of a %u201cStar Trek%u201dtelevision episode. A tall green stranger appears twice to lure the angels from theirpaths, and a furry, rabbit-like creature %u2014evincing great confusion %u2014 hops in and outat the beginning and end.All of this takes place in the mind ofRobert Swedenborg, a Swedish computerexpert related either genealogically orspiritually to the 18th-century philosopher,scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg,on whose visi >ns of heaven and hell Chong%u2019spiece is based.Actually, it%u2019s not clear that Chong actually consulted Swedenborg; credit is given instead to Ju ig e Luis Bulges, iwo of whosestories contain brief accounts of Swedenborg%u2019s visions. This might explain whyChong%u2019s angels %u2014 and the whole atmosphere of this hour-long piece %u2014 are sopowerful, more threatening, than the helterskelter fright of the nightmare-gone-wildfirst act. Here, Clark and the eight others incompany %u2014 Leslie Bryant, JoachimChandler, Dawn Hartley, David Holah,Amanda Ring, Joseph Lennon, Ellen VanSchuylenburch, Carol Straker %u2014 were ableto display their technical strengths to goodadvantage.Apparently, Michael Clark & Co. thoughtthey would shock New York audiences withtheir sophomoric approach to sexuality. Instead, they came off like a bunch of giddykids enjoying their pranks, not understanding that they%u2019ve been done before, andwith greater subtlety and panache. Clarkneeds to choose between his wish to makeoutrageous statements and his clear talentas a dancer and traditional choreographer.One only needs to resort to gimmicks whentrue ability is wanting.Clark, at 24, has left the classical world ofdance in which he was trained from thetime he was a small child in Scotland. Hespent his teen years at the Royal BalletSchool in London, then moved on to BalletRambert. Unfulfilled by traditional dance,he came to New York to study with MerceCunningham and Karole Armitage. Uponhis return to London in 1984, he embarkedupon the adventure of his own company,unleashing his choreographic vision onEngland, then France. His visit here is onestop in a world tour and %u201cNo Fire Escape inHell,%u201d the full evening ballet seen at BAM,was produced in association with London%u2019sSadler%u2019s Wells Theatre.The music, all taped, was performed byThe Fall, Bruce Gilbert, Jeffrey Hinton,Laibach, and Drostan Madden. TheYugoslav group, Laibach, which usuallyperforms live with the company, was notgranted visas by the United States government.NEXT WAVE DANCE: Festival continues with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker,performing %u201cRosas Danst Rosas.%u201d October 30-November 1 at 8pm, November 2at 2pm, in the Lepercq Space. Tickets $15.For more information, call 636-4100.From Divineold-fashioned and lacking in imagination.Though it purports to be a vision, or atany rate a depiction of one, %u201cThe Angels ofSwedenborg%u201d is really nothing more thanan instance of the sentimentality peculiarto the late 20th century. This is the sentimentality that hankers after the soft, comforting forms and symbols of a traditionalreligion that has lost its ability to create effective values.The result is not a new kind of myth,ritual or religious art %u2014 it is simply religionaestheticized. Given Chong%u2019s skill with slideprojections and other technical gadgets (ineluding ofi cicCu umu message sinp whichprovides miscellaneous information and anoccasional quote from Swedenborg), theproduct is not displeasing. The( 'ontimu%u2019d on I%u2019uuc 14O ctober 30, 1986, TH E P H O E N IX . Page 13