Dance Review: Tere O’Conner’s Rammed Earth

If there is a single thing that American society at large does not value, it is humility. In terms of self-esteem, America has a particular bent toward a very immature form of pride, one that stems from a knee-jerk conviction of one’s right to outdo anyone at anytime, which has resulted in a pervasive, unquestioned popular social mode that is literally “contestant.” One must constantly shine. One must put his best foot forward, and there is no room for hesitation. Otherwise, we risk ejection (from reality shows of every ilk), the fate of a failed career, or a failure to provide for one’s family. There are no excuses in contestant mode. Speak up. Bring it, or go home. Be big. Be tough. Take no prisoners. And make no friends along the way. (This national character might go by a more obvious name: “corporate culture”.) We are taught as much from our vomitous supply of “reality” competitions, to our government’s foreign policy, which effectively maneuvers with an “eye for an eye” mentality at all times. All of this “You’re fired,” “You are out,” “Please pack your knives and go home,” “Dance for your life,” survival culture is enough to make anyone panic just thinking about how to begin one’s day. What a relief it was then, Friday evening, to experience Tere O’Connor’s new work, Rammed Earth, with its emphatic (an decidedly contemporary) aesthetic of under-committedness (or lack of “wow factor”) and its exposure of our voluntary isolation in a effort to be only semi-dependent on each other (which goes by in our culture as “empoweredness”), all wrapped up in a formalism that shows an artist in full-charge of his talents.

You might worry when you first get handed your page of diagrams that explain where you’ll be sitting throughout the evening. Three drawings show different formations of seating areas within The Chocolate Factory’s spare, white, rectangular performance space. But O’Connor has no agenda, which makes his application of mobilizing the audience fresh, genuinely expressive, and without message. It seems to be applied simply for the experience, not because it we are to take it as some radical challenge of the audience/performer relationship. And the effect was purely sensual (which includes perspective). In the first section, where the audience was staggered equally throughout the space (isolated from each other), the dancers moved through in inexplicable routes through the maze of chairs, and as they sped up, you began to feel whiffs of air brushing you as a the dancers passed. Or when you sat on one of the short sides of the room, which produced a maximum depth perspective, your eyes became mesmerized as the dancers, clustered together, moved swiftly in a arc away from your and back toward you; elongating the space, and then collapsing it as if tied to a pendulum.

But what is most satisfying, is the blatant, under-committed activity that pervades the work. The dancers almost always move without fully extending anything. They never project a show-stopper kind of virtuosity, although the understated movement belies the rigorousness of the work. It’s hard to imagine anything more antithetical to our expectations of performance. O’Connors performers (Hilary Clark, Heather Olson, Matthew Rogers, and Christopher Williams–all gifted) are not dancing for their lives (a phrase that tellingly derives its name from the song “What A Feeling,” which is used when Jennifer Beals’ character in Flashdance is competing to secure a slot in a dance school!). Rather, they are dancing through life. By it. Not for it. Not for anything.

This resonates as your basic morning mode in New York. You want to get by all the millions of other people around you. Then when you get to work, you want to get past all the hundreds of people ahead of you. There is a deception that takes place when we think that because fifty people are crammed in a subway car together, they are “getting along.” Getting along implies interaction and communication, and equal value for the needs of people around us. But on a subway car, or in a bus, or on a freeway, we are simply getting by; quite literally, getting by each other. And this is how O’Connor’s dancers approach their relationships. When they partner, there is always a reluctance to engage in any serious dependence, which ultimately reduces the opportunities for extreme achievement, which we all know, in physical culture, is only possible with the aid of others.

Rather, O’Connor’s performers “settle” for meek lifts and false needs to be supported or molded by each other. If they move together is it in unison; but there is rarely camaraderie. The performers sometimes speak, but rarely intelligibly, and if we can make out the words, they are let out generally and sound as if they do not really expect to elicit response. The most memorable example of this is when Matthew Rogers is the only mobilized dancer (the others are standing fixed in the middle of the room). He steps fervently around, covering large amounts of territory, all the while vaguely, half-heartedly begging the other dancers, “Come on you guys,” in a way that is hilariously underwhelming and rightly does nothing to move the other dancers, which creates a beautiful psychic friction.

In this way, O’Connor’s performers are and are not relating to each other, which is the key to his critique of American relationships (if I may make that leap). They set out on a course of action that, if need be, they can still accomplish on their own. Even getting thrown against a wall by another person can become an action that you can just as easily accomplish yourself (a brilliant moment between Rogers and Christopher Williams). Other interactions seem to be built out of quick, machine-like movements that are surgical (a repeated exchange of hands and arms between Rogers and Heather Olson), or, like near the end, when Rogers faces forward and the other three performers move in front of him like a conveyor belt, interchange a face-to-face position in front of him, as if any one of them might do just as well as any other. A sudden hug (between Olson and Rogers) that leads into the final fade-out suggests an earnest need to cling to something human; something subjective; something flawed and real.

There are myriad other elements to admire about this work. The performers are O’Connor’s confidence as a choreographer is evident without ever a thought of being flashy or over earnest. A personable coolness of wit runs throughout the piece. And the fact that O’Connor let loose the reigns enough to allow his dancers to help develop the movement material is a sign that he trusts that his skill as a director is just as strong as his ability to imagine movement.

Still, Rammed Earth–which draws its title from a technique of compacting loose earth with water and cement so it can be molded into rigid walls; a literal trans substantiation of earth to architecture–makes its boldest impression in its effort draw attention to the ways in which we shape and compact our humanity into bite-size proximities, defined rigidly by a need to achieve and surpass, which paradoxically makes us more passive toward each other as we come to regard necessity as weakness.

But don’t go to see this work for all of these ideas, which may well only be my ideas. See it because it is an experience that aleviates a very contemporary sensibility, which is the impulse we all have to be ambitious individuals. Rammed Earth proves that a great achievement does not need to be a blow out. And that a little humility could just be what saves our society from getting voted off the planet.

“Rammed Earth” runs through this Sunday at The Chocolate Factory in Long Island City, Queens

October 1, 2007
Categories: Dance, Downtown, Review, To Do . . Author: countercritic

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