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Tanks Under Trees Anne Waldman and Douglas Dunn
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts October 11, 2006 By Nancy Wozny Tanks Under Trees, a new and one-night only collaboration between poet Anne Waldman and modern dance legend Douglas Dunn, brought me back to the old times and to these times. Old times, in that I came of age in Washington D.C. during the collaborative days when multi-disciplinary work was all the rage, when the Interarts department existed at the NEA, and when artists regularly left the safe confines of their respective ghettos. These times, evoked in images of Iraq, terrorism, torture, and the general state of disaster that surrounds us. I’ll take the old times any day, but the essence of the work seemed to point to the fact that we had better wake up to these times before they get even worse. The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center is all about collaboration. And what a collaboration it was with Waldman and Dunn at the helm. Waldman, a hugely accomplished poet, doesn’t simply read her work, she announces it, and sometimes pounds it forward. (Dunn mentioned in the Q & A of her quality of getting poetry off the page—I’ll say.) Part lecture, part scolding sermon, Waldman’s formidable delivery incorporates Sprechstimme (spoke-sung), movement, and an almost choreography of word. A restless and relentless rhythm drives the words while a state of alarm characterizes her dramatic oratory style. There’s a sense of truth-telling or setting the record straight to her authority. You can’t sleep, or rest, or even not listen. Douglas Dunn, in his first-ever Houston performance, led a troupe of University of Houston dancers in an ensemble piece that seemed to take on a life of its own. Dunn was able to cleverly dip these young dancers into his organic school of dance making in two days time. Dunn, in a spiky grey wig and matching jumpsuit, appeared as a leader or muse of his flock. Michelle Fleming, Catalina Gutierrez, Rachel Hodos and Rebecca Rennie danced with clarity and intensity of purpose. Their human presence softened the sometimes difficult edges of the work. And what a marvelous opportunity for these young women to be exposured to Dunn’s well of creativity, however brief. Cellist Max Dyer, an old hand at collaborations, found his own way to enter the fold. Dyer’s rich sounds underlined the sense of gravity, urgency, and sobriety. Conrado “Charry” Garcia played a whole gamut of instruments adding a density and world feel to the sonic score. Zohra Zaka and Ed Bowes’ visuals anchored the work in some gripping images of war and its waste. (Waldman is also listed as a contributor to the visuals.) Waldman describes the work as a poetry driven rhizomic “collage.” Poetry, music, visuals, and movement end up layering, simultaneously occurring, supporting, overlapping, and sometimes simply being in the same room, time and space together. There are moments where a kind of oneness occurs— a refreshing letting of the elements just “be.” Tanks under Trees proved a total work out for my attention; so many choices, so many places to linger, but having done so would have missed something else. There’s a section when all collaborators come together, almost in parade form in a hen dance providing momentary relief. At one point Waldman asks us to pay attention to the watcher in us, and the watcher behind the watcher, and the watcher behind that. These lines speak to the unraveling and revealing nature of her work. Tanks Under Trees speaks to a profound sense of getting to the bottom of things as they are, as they seem, or as they have been packaged for our consumption. It’s a wake- up call. The “what” of the wake-up remains open to the nuances of our perception. Learn more at
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