Yo yo. So, it’s not usually my style to single out dances for being, well, bad. I usually amp up the bitchiness when something thinks it’s way better than it is. I try not to kick something when it’s down. But after Tuesday night…at The Kirov, it finally occurred to me that there is this one style of dance-making that totally bothers; actually, I get quite angry at it: THE DANCE THAT NEVER ENDS. So, I thought it time to make a list of those dances that I remember only for the sheer level of energy it took to sit through.

In chronological order from most recent to the last one I can remember, thankfully…

“In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” by William Forsythe (performed at City Center by The Kirov Ballet) - Apparently a big hit in the 80s, this dance is simply brutal, and it just couldn’t rise above the dated electronic sound score and stark lighting. And with each new activity came yet another fresh wave of torment, as there appeared to be no logic, no form, and no real direction, other than toward the abyss.

“HUGO” by Chris Yon - C.C. checked this out at DTW last weekend. Chris Yon may be a nice guy, but the constant looping of movement phrases wore us down. It didn’t help that the most interesting section was being screened–on loop–on a monitor in front of DTW, which I watched several times before the performance even began, so by the time we were well into the dance, I had probably seen this passage, oh, I don’t know, a billion times? Taryn Griggs and Jeff Larson were excellent performers, but even they couldn’t keep these phrases interesting and fresh for that that long.

Amanda Loulaki - The opening of the Center for Performance Research (CPR), the green performance space jointly anchored by Jonah Bokaer and John Jasperse, saw a variety show of performance acts, including this legendary Ann Liv Young antic. But in the middle of all the hotness, there was a dance by Amanda Loulaki that simply lumbered forward through a series of prop-prepped vignettes; i.e. Oo, there’s a fan. They’re probably going to use the fan. Now they’re using the fan. Hey, look! There’s a box. I wonder what’s in the box. Now they’re picking up the box. Now they’re opening the box. Now they’re tipping the box over. Hey, styrofoam peanuts! I wonder what they’re going to do with those. Oh, she’s going to roll around in them. Now she’s rolling around in them.

“Maybe Forever” by Meg Stuart and Philipp Gehmacher - OMG, this piece would not end! Any part of this dance I was enjoying, and there were some, were upstaged, and, ultimately, destroyed by Stuart and Gehmacher’s unwillingness to wrap things up. And if I never see another singer/song-writer wheel his/her microphone out on stage, only to perform some dippy song while the dancers stand there and watch them sing it, I’ll be a happy Counter Critic. (That goes for you too, Yon.)

“If You Couldn’t See Me” by Trisha Brown - C.C. already writ this one up. I’ll admit, my impatience with this piece was entirely the fault of Robert Rauschenberg’s purgatorial score. Someone please take away his synthesizer!!! And shame on his colleagues for not telling him his music blows. Do we have to do everything around here!?

“Symptoms of Development” by Jacopo Godani - Danced this winter at the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, this short piece felt like it dragged on through to the final apocalypse. Again, the music is partially to blame here, sounding as if it had been lifted from the latest prefabricated television show on the SciFi channel. Like the Forsythe, there is this strain of brutalist dance that is really hard to swallow. More than anything it seems intent on trying your patience with pointless sequences while simultaneously stressing your eyes out with either too dark or blindingly harsh lighting. For gods sake, does anyone have a spare amber gel lying around?

“California” by John Jasperse - Painful. Just painful. We <3 you, John (you know we loved “Misuse…”), but we seriously had to shock ourself with the old defibrillator after this one.

That’s all we can conjure at the moment. Perhaps there have been more. But the recent wave of not-sure-where-all-this-is-going dances has us worried. Part of performance craft is being able to shape
the experience of time in a way that audiences feel either A.) content to let the time pass before them, or B.) swept up with its passing. But C.) causing the audience to feel abandoned in an endless drifting sea of nothingness, isn’t an option.

Is craft vanishing? Or do choreographers regard craft as distasteful, academic, premeditated and limiting? Not all limitations are bad. And when it comes to time–which is always our most valuable and vanishing natural resource–to waste it is inexcusable.