Be jealous.
BodyVox dance company’s new Pearl District digs — 10,000 square feet of jaw-dropping space in an old carriage house, just starting renovations — are likely to be the talk of the Portland performance community this season. The dance center, even in its raw and unfinished form, is sensational.
But don’t be too jealous. The show that opened that new center last night, “Foot Opera Files,” is a paradox. In one evening, it features some of the most breathtaking performances and also the most maddeningly listless dance-making I’ve heard and seen yet this year.
“Foot Opera Files” weds the pitch-black modern pop tunes of Tom Waits, as sung by members of the Portland Opera studio artists program, to new dances created by six BodyVox company members.
First, the breathtaking part: anyone wondering why on earth these young Portland Opera singers had any business messing with Tom Waits got the shock of their lives. All five artists sang the hell out of this music, combining tonal luster with keen intelligence and abundant emotional reserve. They approached the tunes as cabaret art songs in the style of Kurt Weill, backed by a solid four-man band (Michael Papillo, music director), and it worked. I won’t soon forget that burning image of studio artist mezzo Hannah Sharene Penn lying seductively on the floor, purring into her hand mic, over and over, “you’ve gotta let it go.”
As a dance company, BodyVox excels at arresting imagery, and there are a number of gorgeous and memorable tableaux among the “Files.” There’s a young woman being lassoed by a string of gold stars; a mass of writhing bodies, pulsing in deadly rhythm; a tricky two-step with a two-by-four. In interviews before opening, co-artistic directors Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland took pains to say they were avoiding literal interpretations of the songs, which makes company member Eric Skinner’s choreography in tunes like “Rains On Me” (a torrential downpour on Hampton) or “Picture in a Frame” (in which Roland poses her male love interest in the center of an empty bed frame) questionable.
I had other questions. Why does so much of the dancing look improvised and under-formed? Why does the company rely so heavily on props as gimmicks to drive the dance? Where was that marvelous BodyVox member Laura Haney for this project? And WTF were they thinking by staging Waits’ haunting “Black Wings” as a wince-inducing scene in a boxing ring?
At the very least, go for the unforgettable opening six minutes, which offers a glimpse of what BodyVox does best: a seductive, playful slow reveal of the entire company, all of them dressed to kill and grinning up to their ears as they slink into their new dance center home. There's magic in this place, they seemed to suggest. And for those first few moments, I believed them.
[photo above by Ken Salaman, courtesy BodyVox]
