Red Rover

Today, I attended the end of a dance performance called Red Rover. The dance piece presented five individual pieces spread throughout campus. Because the title was “Red Rover”, the color red was vibrantly infused into each location or the dancers themselves.
Though I was not able to view the entire performance, I was able to view many of Nadia’s records from the performance, which were outstanding. She managed to create compositions that captured the dancers at the height of their movement and with the full brilliance of the scene; color and contrast. One dance took place in the Clark Center. To the viewer of the performance, the dancers were framed by the red arches of the Clark Center, which lie parallel to the ground. It was surreal to see the arches in the context of dance, where I was more familiar with them in the days when I worked at a lab in the Clark Center. In the center of the Clark Center, there is a large circle. The dancers had lined the circle with rose petals, spiraling them inwards. The contrast of the bright red petals against the concrete seemed to breathe life into an otherwise barren structure. The actual dance consisted of four dancers; two couples. They wound around the spiral carefully, not disturbing any of the petals as they spiraled in and out holding hands. As the dance moved onwards, their care of the spiral lessened and their motions became more dramatic. The spiral fell into disarray. To me, it reminded me of a mandala painting; of the impermanence of beauty, and how even that impermanence can be beautiful. The disorderly arrangement of the petals did not take away from the bright life they brought to the Clark Center.

As the dancers moved from location to location, there were guides that pointed the way. Dressed in all white with a striking red bandana in their hair or on their arm, the guides either stood as still as statues, hunched in varying positions on the walkway, or stood in a dramatic dance pose pointing the way to the next performance. One impressive piece involved them waving red ribbon streamers down through the main quad.

The final piece was set in the red fountain in front of Green Library. I was able to speak to one of the dancers about the composition and choreography behind the dance. The two dancers were dressed in all white and moved gracefully about the arch of the red fountain. There was a little table inside the water curtains of the fountain that the dancers would occasionally stand on to perform. They wound around each other delicately, and played on the contrast between standing outside the red arch, and in the center of the fountain. They also took the opportunity to stand directly underneath the curtain, taking full advantage of all of the space. The reflection of the light from the fountain on them made them appear ethereal. They were playing on two dimensions of red: the conception of red as the color of passion, and its conception as the color of rage. When the choreographer decided to create this dance, she thought about what red meant to her. She found a poem that described red as a dichotomous color, a color of oppositions. She brought the poem in for the dancers and asked them to choreograph something for themselves as if it would be an individual piece, and took elements from it to use in the final choreography. Working with the conception of red as a dichotomy, she decided to represent this in the space she was using. The movement of the dancers between the outside of the fountain to the ‘nucleus’ of the fountain was very deliberate. I did not notice this myself because I did not notice the changes in poses between outside the fountain and inside, but I did notice their delicate use of the space. When I looked at the images Nadia took, it did seem that when they were moving into the center of the fountain, it symbolized a deepening of intensity. Proximity itself was enough to induce that feeling of intensity.

Furthermore, according to the dancer, the dance was intended to symbolize the contrast between the two emotional elements of red. The choreographer wanted to show how movement would change based on feeling; for example, the difference between movement in passion, and movement in fear. The movement in fear was especially communicative to me, as the dancer would hunch over and place her hands between her knees and look to the side. It was an upwards fetal position, and when it was being explained to me, I could name the feeling based on her pose before she named it herself. It was incredible to me that emotion could be that clearly articulated through dance pose and body language.

Red Rover was a feast for the eyes in action and in stills; and a feast for the mind. It gave me quite a lot to think about, and a greater appreciation of the work and concept that goes into creating a story or presentation of ideas through dance. It is more than creating something beautiful; these choreographers created pieces with real weight and meaning, and they pay very close attention to visual presentation, aesthetics of the surroundings, and the nuances of the space they are working with. I have never thought so much after a dance performance, and I am inspired to try to create a dance choreography at some point (after much more training and practice!).