WhiteOakProject SHIFT / COMMAND / 4

In 1999 the director of the White Oak Dance Project, Mikhail Baryshnikov invited Lucy Guerin to contribute two works to a triple bill of acclaimed choreographers, consisting of Trisha Brown, Mark Morris, and Tamasaburo Bando. The White Oak Project began in 1989 after Mikhail Baryshnikov had left the American Ballet Company after serving nine years as artistic director and wanted to form a small touring company. Many choreographers have been commissioned to make new works for the small company such as Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Meg Stuart, and Tere O'Connor who recently held a workshop at Lucy Guerin Inc in August 2010.

Lucy created a new work for the White Oak Dance Project, Soft Centre, and remounted Two Lies, created in 1996. Originally premeiring in New York the White Oak Dance Project then toured to Sadlers Wells, London in the same year of 1999. Mikhail performed in Soft Centre along side Raquel Aedo, an American born dancer who had been dancing with the White Oak Dance Project from 1994.

Soft Centre's disjointed score combines music by a range of contemporary groups with a bit of Hidemith. It's costumes, by Liz Prince, cover white Leotards with sheer blue tops and trousers. Its design sets the performers in opposite corners of the stage sending semaphore gestures into space; soon they come together, find ingenious ways to entangle themselves, and then back away; by the end he's in the back, she's in front, and they're moving in unison. Complex and demanding, it's the purest of pure dance, totally matter-of-fact in its reliance on the resources of the human body. No romance here; just the steps, ma'am, and they're gripping.

Elizabeth Zimmer, Baryshnikov Projects a Sharper Image, the village VOICE, August 24, 1999

...but the experimental Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin had the most inventive vocabulary in Soft Centre, Mr Baryshnikov and Ms. Aedo, resembling Michelin Man figures in Liz Prince's costumes, finally made contact through isolated spiraling movement that Ms. Guerin created for them to a collage score. The impression was of angular undulation, knots and coils of dancing intricately put together and very well performed.

Anna Kisselgoff, A Coquettish Guise With Emotional Nuance, The Arts, The New York Times, August 24, 1999

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Dance
• Contemporary
• White Oak Project
• Baryshnikov
• Guerin
• Entertainment