Whim W’Him, the modern dance company led by Olivier Wevers, opened their show Third Degree last night (at Intiman Playhouse tonight, 8 p.m., and Sunday, 7 p.m.; tickets), with a typically generous program from Wevers that includes “This Is Real,” choreographed by dancer Andrew Bartee, and “L’Effleuré” by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, as well as Wevers’ “I Don’t Remember A Spark” and a reprise of “FRAGMENTS.”
If you need just one reason to go, Michael Upchurch writes in the Seattle Times, Bartee is it:
Set to a Vivaldi score, “L’Effleuré” opens with Bartee in gleaming half-silhouette (the title, as the program explains, is a play on the French words for “flower” and “one who has been gently touched, caressed”). The variety, control and detail of his actions, as he unspools himself in response to the music, are truly mesmerizing. There’s a latent violence in his eddying elegance, too, that lends the piece a stinging edge.
Lopez Ochoa created the work, which had its premiere in 2010, for Rubinald Pronk; in the rehearsal I saw a seemingly small touch — Bartee had roses for palms and mouth — came to feel surreal in the good, transgressive way.
“I Don’t Remember A Spark” features some newer faces for the company (Lara Seefeldt, Mia Monteabaro, Sergey Kheylik), and though it’s often light-hearted, it includes an intense pas de deux between Tory Peil (who, to continue the floral theme, seems really to be blossoming in Wevers company) and Bartee. Composer Brian Lawlor has turned a Wevers “interview” into a kind of tone poem, contrasting with and accentuated by the “stark and dark and black-and-white” lighting that Wevers asked of designer Michael Mazzola.
