Dances Viewed This Week

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange - Pas de Dirt

This balletic homage to construction was very inventive, but overall gimicky.  I loved the choreography of the earthmovers, but wanted to see the dance move forward.  It did not become more than the sum of its parts, which bothered me.  I found the way the earthmovers were used to be cute, but ultimately predictable.  All in all, I would say it was a dance that needed more thought, more concept.  It was cute, but it could have been amazing.


Faye Driscoll - 837 Venice Blvd

This excerpt was incredibly fresh and inventive.  Faye Driscoll has created a beautiful psychological landscape here in which she unabashedly explores human relationships.  The excerpt made me want to see more.  I watched another Driscoll piece on video earlier this summer, and was quite impressed by it.  The dance seems to move seamlessly from scene to scene; in fact, it’s the transitions that are often the most interesting.  Driscoll finds beautiful ways of moving between ideas.  It is often difficult to see where one idea ends and the next begins.  Too often dance feels like an awkwardly put together scrapbook, but here the transitions are flawless.  I hope to see this piece in its entirety someday.