Dance Review: John Jasperse’s Misuse liable to prosecution at BAM

Whether or not audiences will leave the theater rushing home to their check books after having seen John Jasperse’s new work, Misuse liable for prosecution, which opened Wednesday at BAM, seems happily irrelevant. If, with this dance, Jasperse is making a sincere play to gain sympathy for the general population of impoverished dance artists, his efforts will surely be complicated by his work, which seems to divide audiences between those who lionize him and those who walk away thinking that he has no talent as a choreographer; or worse, that it isn’t dance. But bringing economy to the forefront of his creative thought seems to have allowed Jasperse to create a dance that is unabashedly entertaining, and thoughtfully self-aware.

As reported by The Times, Jasperse does open the work–well, after having been lying on his back and weaving a giant hanging sheet of orange power chords with his legs as the audience is filing into the theater–with a brilliant overture deliver by Jasperse through the bell of a traffic cone, that the total cost of the costumes and sets came to around $300. Along with that factoid, Jasperse also recites a litany of comparative financial statistics, ranging from how much the U.S. government spends daily on the war in Iraq (obscene), to how much the “highest paid employee at BAM” makes compared to the same position at Lincoln Center (about half one third), to his own annual salary: $26,000.

But the rest of the work isn’t so much about this. As you wonder at the set design (credited to Jasperse)–a few thousand clear plastic hangers have been constructed into four or so massive hanging mobiles that seem to fracture to the atmosphere of the theater space like a smashed windshield–the satisfaction is more sensual than moral. Stealthily lit by a series of flickering lamps (lighting co-designed by Joe Levasseur and Jasperse), they often look like frenetic, apocalyptic trees brooding in the dark. They’re also used brilliantly as obstacles to the dance, as a guideless Jasperse makes his way around the stage with a bean bag plopped on his head.

And indeed, this is what becomes most satisfying about the work: the use of materials. Whether it is a moment where a phrase of movement is composed of Jasperse trying to make his way upstage carrying way too many broom-like objects, a milk crate, and the traffic cone, or whether it is a brilliant quartet for dancers and blue jeans (really, a shockingly visceral moment), the material use is the thing. And the contradictory play on the title, which comes from milk crates, resonates as a call to misuse objects in as many ways as possible, which seems to be a better use for them than their everyday purposes. It seems Jasperse and the performers have really gotten to know these objects–this detritus–and have, in collaboration, created a performance that is highly sensitive to their individual physical properties. (If that isn’t the very definition of dance, I don’t know what is.)

Another brilliant moment comes when Michelle Boule and Eleanor Hullihan have sat down and placed water bottle between their legs; when they roll over, they are back lit, and you see a bracelet of gleaming crystals shines from beneath them.

The aforementioned bean bag is used masterfully on its own; as a dead weight that is alternatively tossed from dancer to dancer and then fallen upon as a cushion. This culminates in a genius double duet between Jasperse and the bean bag and Hullihan and a cardboard box. Both manipulates their object in the same manner and in strict time, and you wonder how two objects so dissimilar can exhibit such harmony of motion.

It should be noted that this informality, the conspicuous and literal referencing to the cheapness of the objects that are used to create the sets and costumes (mostly t-shirts that have been reassembled by Jasperse and Icon Design to create interesting and sometimes funny shapes; although composer/harpist Zeena Parkins stands out in a futuristic cocktail number made out of FedEx boxes and white tape) couldn’t be more of a departure from the last work he brought to BAM, 2004’s California, a dance work of conspicuously decadent proportions.

In that work, four grand pianos positioned at the corners of the stage were used by four pianists, all of whom played single notes every now and then; really, music that could have been played by one pianist on one piano. The pianos being amplified, there was little case to be made that they were experimenting with some kind of spacial relationship between them. It was a merely impressive choice. Then there was the set, a giant, expensive looking construction made of translucent plastic panels. The dancers brought out leaf blowers–noisy, energy wasting machines–to move the sculpture around in the space, in probably the least efficient way imaginable, aside from simply huffing and puffing their own lungs. By the end of the piece, the giant sculpture was simply torn down by the dancers.

My reaction to California was of frustration. It seemed wasteful in many ways. It seemed that with all this money apparently behind the production, the material use rang of a decadence that comes from unlimited resources. So rampant in our culture is wasteful spending, that as a poor artist, to go and see a work at BAM (where we misguidedly assume that the artists are laughing all the way to the bank) I was offended by the blatant underusedness of the resources at hand, which seemed underused for no reason but because they could be underused; although I can see now how that is the “art” of that particular work. Even the movement language didn’t seem to challenge the dancers to do anything that a normal person on the street couldn’t do with a little effort and a few contact-improv classes. Call it misuse, if you will.

In contrast, with Misuse, Jasperse puts almost no money into the set design, and comes up with something far more satisfying. It also seems to have forced him to focus more on the movement–whether intentionally or not–which was perhaps “dancier” than in his previous work. At the very least, it is more challenging. There is a vivacious quality to many passages. I have already mention the “jeans dance”, where dancers fold and unfold them, turn them inside out, and lash them against the ground in strict rhythm and with fierce aggression. Then there is a vigorous duet between Boule and Hullihan. After they have stuffed as many of the plastic bottles as they could into their t-shrits, they begin whipping each other around, dashing their bodies against each other when Levi Gonzales and Kayvon Pourazar bring out an inflatable mattress against which Boule and Hullihan begin tossing their bodies as the bottles are flying from them in every direction.

There was still some of the Jaspersean lethargy that I recall dominating California. But here it comes across as poignancy rather than status quo. And this kind of body movement is deceptively lax. It may appear to be casual, but there is always a recurrent hint of classicism in the postures and limb extensions, and the general rigorousness of the dance (the tight rhythms of the ensemble work, the exactness of certain poses and shifts of position) is challenging to a degree that might not always read on the surface. But that is the art of his work, and that will always challenge audiences.

The music is smartly scored by downtown dance favorite, Zeena Parkins, who plays live her electric harp and melodica against a pre-recorded soundtrack of musical and sound affects. The harmonies were appropriately expansive and tonally meditative. Noise-based moments emerged and dissipated. A chorus of chirps, squeeks and grinds flavors various moments. The score is given a wonderfully broad dimension by the inclusion of acoustic instruments–here bagpipes, reeds and bells–by Matthew Welch and David Watson who played from the balcony. The bagpipes gave your body a nice shot of adrenaline.

There is something inconclusive about the final moment. [SPOILER ALERT] Jasperse returns with his traffic cone. But instead of sharing another list of financial statistics, he trails off about how he is going to end the piece. It doesn’t entirely work, although, in the last moment he suggests that he wanted to figure out a way expand the space of the theater. And, after awkwardly revealing that he wanted to use explosives to blow it up, he then says that he wondered if they could just get the walls to move out a little, as if the theater had taken one deep breath. Everyone I talked to after the performance said that they themselves took a deep breath when he said that. I did too. Which makes me convinced that Jasperse is in masterful command of his resources, which, unbeknownst the audience, included us.

“Misuse liable for prosecution” runs tonight through Saturday at BAM. Showtimes start at 7:30PM.