Axis Dance Company came to Meany Theatre Thursday night, the opening production of the 2013-2014 UW World Series. The series is showing some adventurous branching out these days, under the leadership of Michelle Witt, who took over as Executive Director of the series a few years ago. This year’s offerings show her stamp more clearly, but old-time subscribers can rest easy that the world’s great proponents of dance and music are still here.
Axis is an adventure in itself: a dance company including dancers who would, in everyday life, be considered physically unable to dance. As such, it is an inspiration, and there were quite a few attendees Thursday night who used wheelchairs or other aids to walk.
Of the five dancers on stage, two had disabilities: one man in a wheel chair, one woman with a metal crutch, which she sometimes set aside. But to dwell on their disabilities would be to negate what this company is about: to show that even in the most physical of activities, such a handicap does not need to slow one down.
Of the three works on the program, the first and longest was the most successful. Full of Words, by choreographer Marc Brew, explored relationships in three vignettes on different parts of the stage separated by lighting: two women who danced beside, over, under and around a table; a man and a woman using a claw tub for a prop, and a man alone in a recliner.
The agility and flexibility of the two women, one of whom rarely stood, gave a clear vision of the connections between them. The same, with a different tension in their relationship, pertained for the two in and around the bathtub, while the man in the chair used his powerfully muscled arms and torso to move everything except his legs, which he picked up and put in various places. Towards the end, one of the two women joined him for a brief dance and snuggle. The piece was perhaps a bit long, but it held interest, as did the beautiful quality of the dancers’ technique and synchronicity.
Dancer Sebastian Grubb’s often quirky The Narrowing had himself, able-bodied, and Joel Brown, in a wheel chair, mirroring each other’s movements at first, then branching out, though the program notes on this seemed pretentious for what we saw. It involved some considerable strength and athleticism. For instance, Grubb at one point picked up Brown in his chair, whirled them both over his head, and set them down on the other side, while at another, Brown supported Grubb as he wheeled over the chair and Brown himself, and a couple of times just leapt over both.
What If Would You was the least successful piece. Choreographed by Victoria Marks, to me it demeaned what the company is trying to do by shoving the disability aspect at the audience, rather than letting its actions speak for themselves. It involved phrases and words, often disjointed, spoken by the dancers, who halfway through dispersed into the audience and brought on stage two able-bodied women, one young man in a wheelchair, and a small boy without his wheelchair who crawled about the stage on his knees. Grouping themselves in twos and threes with lots of handholding, it seemed to have not much dance to it.
Music for this last was by Beth Custer. The other two works did not acknowledge the composers, and none acknowledged the lighting designers. However, the company left a powerful impression of creative, disciplined technique, using their well-trained, lithe bodies as far as they were able.
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