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Hope Stone Dance
Hope Stone Dance Photography by Simon Gentry
Neil Ellis Orts Friday, October 23, 2009 Lindsay McGill dances an extended solo, her backdrop an enormous but empty picture frame plus three window frames which hold sepia photographs from the era when people didn't yet know how to say "cheese" for the photographer. Occasionally, other dancers pass behind her, laying down books before them which they use as stepping stones to get across the stage. McGill seems to be remembering. Sometimes the memories animate her, sometimes they give her pause. Sometimes I wonder if she grasps the memory or if it is simply fading away, leaving her with the grief of lost details. Jane Weiner's latest creation for Hope Stone Dance, The Village of Waltz, is a puzzle of reflection and wit, romance and silliness, and it all snaps together into a seamless dream. At curtain's rise, the company is in a line, facing away from the audience, wearing identical black suits. They march forward and back and appear to be itching (literally) to get out of the confining clothing. Comic timing is key to this sequence as the simplest moves elicit laughter from the audience. When they finally do escape the suits (a change of clothing descends from above on hangers), they spend the rest of the performance in costumes that evoke a peasant people but not a precise peasant people. These characters could be gypsies or from A quartet of musicians play in the orchestra pit before the stage and their presence occasionally lends an atmosphere of an outdoor dance, like at a Fourth of July picnic. A parade of ages pass before our eyes, small children to grey-haired adults. Some are in love. Some are ridiculous. Soprano Ana Treviño-Godfrey and tenor Daniel Buchanan sing a duet of no words that is full of haunting emotion. If I write in scenes and images, it is because this is what Village of Waltz offers. The cross fading of ache and playfulness does not lend itself to easy interpretation or simple symbolism. The impressionistic evening tripped specific memories and associations in my mind and I can only assume the standing ovation at the final curtain was the result of similar reactions within the crowd around me. Were the associations the same throughout the audience? Highly unlikely. Writing now, three days after the performance, some details are escaping me while others remain strong. I wonder how they got from the stepping-stone books to the silliness with the black socks. But isn't this how dreams are? Sometimes all that remains of a dream is an emotional impression and a few fleeting pictures. The best dreams, like Village of Waltz, are the ones from which you wake up sorry it's over but glad to have dreamt it.
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