warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Kevin Williamson Creates A Beautifully Unfinished Draft

Christina Campodonico |
November 11, 2014 | 9:37 a.m. PST

Contributor

Kevin Williamson (Photo by Steven Schreiber)
Kevin Williamson (Photo by Steven Schreiber)
In her book “The Creative Habit,” choreographer Twyla Tharp characterizes walking into an empty studio, as a solitary engagement with one’s inner intensities:

“I am alone with my body, ambition, ideas, passions, needs, memories, goals, prejudices, distractions, fears

...the last two—distractions and fears—are the dangerous ones.” 

The empty studio, the white canvas, the blank page—devoid of content or material—are perilous places for any artist to begin, but Kevin Williamson is unafraid of exploring those spaces between rough composition and final draft.

In “Body of Ideas,” which opened an hour-long performance at the Alternate Currents Festival in Venice on Saturday, Williamson physicalizes the struggle and frustration of the creative act, but never allows it to overwhelm his performance. From a corner of the room, Williamson surveys the Electric Lodge’s bare stage, like a contractor before breaking ground—or in this case, like a choreographer before taking the first step.

Inspired by pieces of discarded choreography taken from rehearsal footage, Williamson melds these excerpts into an eclectic mix of solo material.  

SEE ALSO: The BalletBoyz At The Music Center: Meet Leon Poulton

Balletic quotations—arms raised high in a curved fifth en haut—cohabitate with pop culture references such as Beyoncé’s signature side-to-side neck bob and more quotidian sentiments, like waving goodbye.  To whom, or what doesn’t seem to matter, or concern us, as much as the flotsam and jetsam that accumulates in odd arrangements throughout Williamson’s tireless display of kinetic energy and range. 

In one instance, Williamson is spinning like a dervish. In another, he is hopping up and down, like a pogo stick, while his arms smoothly fold into prayer-like, Vedic gestures behind his back. Then, he throws his lanky arms and legs into a giant tour jété that resembles an albatross thrashing its wings before flight.

Initially, Williamson’s “Body of Ideas (solo study)” appears like an alphabet soup, containing everything but the kitchen sink, but watching Williamson is actually like seeing an artist’s sketchpad come to life. All the half-done doodles become animated in real time. Williamson’s physical ramblings resist resolution—he exits the stage physically spent, but John Cale’s “Sun Blindness Music” roils on like an electronic current churning repetitively in a vacuum—the brain’s circuitry still brooding over steps untaken and choreographic choices yet to be made.  

Kevin Williamson & Company take a bow.
Kevin Williamson & Company take a bow.

Though the program moves on, Williamson’s solo remains precisely in progress, not quite complete. This sense of unfinished business extends to Williamson’s group work with his company of six dancers in "Spiral1 (draft1)" as they explore the nature of romantic relationships. Dancer Raymond Ejiofor grabs Barry Brannum by the shoulders, as if to force his counterpart into an embrace, but the two suddenly pause—a hair’s breadth away from locking lips.

The tension of the kiss deferred is palpable throughout the dance. Dancers couple and uncouple, at times orbiting around each other like possessive planets, in other instances attempting to fit themselves into an elaborate human jig-saw puzzle—the negative spaces where one body ends and another begins. One dancer domineeringly sits on her male partner’s belly, her legs spread wide in a deep plié over his svelte girth. Another female dancer forcibly presses a man’s head into her thigh. Passion surges through them, but it is never quite consummated.  

Unrequited intentions reoccur when Brannum and another dancer, Kevin Le, attempt to kiss and embrace, but their arms move past the mark. Their hands reach beyond each other’s shoulders, pulled by some unseen force.  If the kiss was aborted before, the embrace is taken too far now, past the point of recognition, as Brannum and Le move apart, grasping at nothing and making out with no one.  Their longing is apparent, but the object of desire remains unattainable—literally out of reach. 

But such is the delight of Williamson’s work—it remains a work ever in progress and is boldly unafraid of leaving the viewer in suspense and yearning for more.

Contact Contributor Christina Campodonico here

For more Theater & Dance coverage click here



 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.

 
ntrandomness