Is there a fleeting window of time when dancers are at their optimum? Or is dance a lifetime practice wherein, animated by intent, it exists for all living bodies? I would lean toward the latter. In spite of my mindset though, dance, and its validity or relevant contribution, is largely looked upon as an art form reserved for the 20 to 30-somethings who are physically able to fulfill common expectation, replete with virtuosic turns and jumps and attendant stamina.

To be sure, hot shot tricks for the robust and nimble can be impressive, and one can easily understand the popular tendency to focus on that. As in so many areas of artistic inquiry, however, where crowd-pleasing eclipses the broader picture, dance is less about athletic prowess and illusion and is more purely about movement and its ability to tell us something concerning the human experience. Reduced to its most essential, dance is any intended exploration of the moving body, determined by time, space, and consciousness.

One beautiful illustration of this inclusive idea was the concert unveiled at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center on Saturday evening, April 28. To underscore the crux of the studio’s mission, “nurturing and mentoring the growth of dancers and choreographers,” the event, titled Onsite, partnered six seasoned dance makers with the Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble (SAYE). The Youth Ensemble is a group of pre-professional teenage dancers, directed by Mo Miner, who were given the opportunity to work closely with several established choreographers: Suzanne Beahrs, Jenny Stulberg, Byb Chanel Bibene, Tanya Chianese (ka·nei·see | collective), and Andrew Merrell. What we saw was a wide spectrum of bodies moving to affect change, in themselves and in us. In the case of this showing, the intergenerational nature of the project took place during the “making” process, and was reflected in the curation of the evening, if not during any actual piece. This idea, separate from any “intergenerational” slant, is interesting by itself. How might my dance made for my body differ from my dance made for your body? Through this lens, we can transcend the constraints of chronological age and simply see any living body as an instrument for dance. Moreover, within this frame of reference, based both on nuance and commonality, we can witness the wonder that is humanity and its ephemeral echo that is dance. That said, to see young, forming bodies interpret a mature vision is an awe-inspiring display of passion and possibility.

The experimental evening began with a dance film titled Parting Light, choreographed and performed by Suzanne Beahrs against a compelling sound score composed by Adam Crawley. Grounded and confident, Beahrs adeptly sliced space and whipped across a dusty terrain in waning early-evening light. “A mature, fully realized dancer,” I remember thinking. As I watched the movement I began to anticipate its rhythms and punctuation. The consistent quality of her style and dynamic was simultaneously satisfying and puzzling. I was looking for something unexpected, as varied inflection can often render something essentially beautiful more meaningful. And then it came.

Beahrs’ slicing surrendered to a soft caress of the earth, and her earlier display of resolute attack mutated into the quiet power of her breath. Finally, her closed eyes, exposed throat, and open sternum lent the piece its deservèd resolve: a woman alone with the earth acknowledging an expansive universe.

This same choreographer’s piece, In a Blustery State, for three young women and one young man from the Youth Ensemble, contained all of the movement affinities assigned to Beahrs’ own body in her film, but were instead imprinted on and refreshingly translated by these emerging dancers. A lovely companion piece to her projected solo, for this work she used a shifting dynamic to full advantage. Intermittent moments of aggressive effort relented under the softer canopy of adage-like sections that fluctuated as if determined by wind. The young dancing bodies were clearly still forming, engaged in the process of growing; self-acquainting; tentatively affirming any physical certainty. Perceived gender, too, was innovatively ignored and imbued the dance with a uniformity of power that enhanced the lush sensibility of the action.

Choreographer Jenny Stulberg served up a classic modern dance sample in her work As On Water. Eight cooperating young dancers of the Youth Ensemble were moved in multiple ways. Some conceits were as standard as a handstand, while other more inventive patterns included her mastery of counterpoint. One memorable instance of this tool manifested as three staggered horizontal lines. Each group executed a series of oscillating stacked gestures and gently focused whole-body undulations. The inherent gestalt was stunning: beautiful young bodies put to task in service to the sumptuous whole, where a confluence of community and artistry unfolded before our eyes. Old fashioned dance-making tools like this never go out of date.

I feel that a deeper commitment to the movement from the dancers would have enriched the living exchange, them to us. However, when an innate understanding of a movement source was indeed fully embodied, miracles occurred. A simple “rocking” motion on the knees propelled the crouched dancers in a number of separate directions, efficiently and gracefully. A hinging retreat from a fading light was the last reverberating image for the viewer. The outcome was a glimpse into the metaphoric world of the dancers and the proprietorship of their bodies and of the ensuing material.*

A sophisticated work carefully crafted by Tanya Chianese on her company, called Stop Telling Women to Smile, served as an agent of both levity and darkness. On the surface, we watched two extremely capable dancers (Madeline Matuska and Rebecca Morris) in flowered prints pose and smile forcibly, confrontational and photo-ready. Below that, one read the insipid and bitter nature of the posturing and the social truth relating to women and the bane that is their erroneously assigned “duties,” unwittingly succumbing to an imposed cult of appearances, a habitual and expected performative.

In title and in application, the piece had a militant “no more” message to it. Even an embrace was delivered as an autonomous act, a woman hugging herself, as if to say, “I don’t need you for this.” Quirky phrasing and razor sharp precision added to the mounting tension of the piece, additionally punctuated with lush, sustained stillness. Creepy smiles trespassed throughout the intricate thread of movement, the last enduring image of two snide sneers being no exception.

Later in the evening, Chianese also premiered Fledge for four young women of the SAYE. For these bodies, the choreographer utilized her shrewd skills differently. One sensed the importance of narrative for Chianese, albeit abstracted. The piece began with a flat line of dancers carrying out a series of gestures – a thrifty tool not wasted on this dance maker. Idiosyncratic fragments of defiant femininity laid bare the choreographer’s concerns while spelling out her artistic voice. Her music choice too was spot on. Ezio Bosso’s sublime sound supported the vision all the way to a shoulder-to-shoulder parade downstage, a sensuous shoulder roll, and a concluding collapse. A propos of the title, I have come to know that an artist’s internal life emerges with time and experience, so the occasional moment of emotional blankness was easy to forgive. The devoted spirit of these youths was a joy to observe.

For the Youth Ensemble, Byb Chanel Bibene created Acts of Motion, a non-linear concept linearized by “acts,” or chapters of movement. Dressed alike in white tank tops and yellow skirts, one male presenting body and many female presenting bodies participated in what felt like an exploration of movement for the sake of it; a wondrous notion.

Spoken word and dance seem like obvious bed partners but this combination, in fact, must be used judiciously. Bibene did just that. At the top of the piece, a girl recited lines from a poem by Katrina S. Lucas (“Dance unto the light, Sway to the sounds of time…”) invoking the spirit of dance. The choreographer then cohesively integrated disparate parts through the minimal device of vocals: “Act 1,” she said, then, “Act 2,” and so on. By numerically distinguishing each section, the choreographer was able to quilt together a series of independent movement studies. At intervals the original speaker recited more poetic excerpts, emphasizing the importance of dance in our culture and the many ways in which dance heals, adheres, and replenishes. “Dance unto the light,” she reminded us. Multiple vignettes eventualized. This piece grew from an unsuspecting study to a full blown gem, complex and complete. I compared this work to the experience of slowly leafing through an illuminated manuscript, each page more elaborate and beauteous then the one before it.

It felt imperative that the bodies dancing this piece were fledglings. It was their undisputed innocence that drove the purity and urgency of the message. They nobly carried out a specific sequence of rituals without the “overthinking” that can accompany so much professional dance. They formed circles, they stomped, they spoke, they scattered, they reorganized, they clapped their hands, they shuddered, they stood calmly. Their undertakings were dizzying and essential. The piece resolved with the final stanza of a separate poem from Maria Luisa Taylor. She bade us, “Dance, dance, dance,” juxtaposed by a single body dancing to survive, clinging to life – and to dance.

Bibene’s work is steeped in natural mystery and tradition. He is a native of the Republic of Congo and, if you have seen his work before, it would not be unusual to see indigenous costume or to hear him speak his dialect in a trance-like state often directed at or engaged with otherworldly entities unknown.

His piece Moving Targets was a solo created for his own body. The work addressed the unimaginable horrors awaiting boatloads of people forced to abandon their native lands, hoping for a reprieve from the abject suffering foisted upon them back home. A news broadcaster’s voice was the initial sound element: “shipwreck,” “off the coast of Libya,” “migrants,” “swallowed by the boat.” The gravitas of the performance set in immediately. Bibene sat alone on a chair facing the viewers, head lowered, a long plane of red fabric spreading away from him creating a corridor toward us. He wore a loose black wrap over his body. Seated, his dancing form reacted to the brutality of the information. He understood urgent exodus, aimless retreat, loss, and longing for rest. The dance assumed the power of a ritual – no longer a “dance” to be perceived from my convenient perch, but a designated event, happening only then and there, involving an ancient medium and us, and how we shifted. The strange fluidity with which he moved made me think that, indeed, this was special; its own kind of invocation, beautiful and instilled of mystical absolutes in spite of the bleak preface. The effect was hypnotizing. His hybridization of his African essence and contemporary western influences served to infuse the phenomenon with accessibility and immediacy. But this power and its strangeness also felt intimidating at times. Bibene seemed to break the fourth wall, enter our “safe space,” and speak in a mysterious way. He whispered, and spoke in repetition in a beseeching and prayer-like tone. What was he saying? And herein lie the magic: What his words meant was far less important than how this language made us feel and how we aligned with the sacred as it was spoken. He baptized himself repeatedly with water from a meridian of many staggered bowls placed on the floor, and he amphibiously dragged his body alongside the great red rectangle of material.

The ritual that was Moving Targets was enacted by Bibene uniquely, and this was crucial. He alone could perform this somber sacrament within the circle and the square and their infinite resonance; not replicating a series of memorized abstracts, but culled and revealed via a deeply personal embodiment.

Andrew Merrell also showed two pieces. The first, Kiss Me While I Sleep, was an excerpt from a longer piece premiered earlier this year. An extravaganza of semiotics, this section was a solo (sort of … there were two interactive stagehands) for dancer Lexi Whaley. She preened and posed in a short black cocktail dress. Her accessories and surrounding props and sets were hot pink – all of them: her sunglasses, gloves, socks, a dresser on wheels, a pillow, and a bucket. Ascertained from the title and the sexy styling, one sensed an adult context: this was a grown up’s realm. The dancer’s world-weary expression and uber-cool posturing compelled the spectator to look for hidden meanings. But while spoon-fed “meaning” may not have been what we walked away with, the countless impressions were eternal. Merrell took us on a journey through the recesses of his imagination, a place where hope, whimsy, sadness, camp, sexual desire, oddity, and wisdom collide. A queer space. The abstract trajectory satisfied in a way that more literal narratives often cannot. His meandering thread unfailingly surprised us as much as it disarmed him in the sewing of it, I suspect.

The one dancer languorously fulfilled her first set of assignments, exuding blithe boredom while the Eurythmics serenaded us with Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). A pink spray bottle soon appeared while the stage hands ordained a “splash zone.” Predictably, like any spot-on gag, Whaley squirted the audience, a hilarious and wonderful invitation to “enter if you dare.” We had no choice. Per Merrell’s ingenuity, we were already in over our heads.

Like in a dream, a seemingly unrelated scene soon unfolded, and our soloist transformed from an Audrey Hepburn-like vamp into a 1960s Puerto Vallarta Liz Taylor, decked in a flowing printed peignoir, drop earring, and carefree hair. For this section, Merrell choreographed his trademark balls-to-the-wall variation: a thrashing containment of structured high-octane chaos exquisitely performed by Whaley. This kind of dance is some of the most difficult to pull off, as it requires equal measures of physical control, skill, clarity of intent, and full abandon. Brava.

A baptismal theme reemerged when the dancer serially drew water from the pink bucket, let it fall, and returned to repeat the action, a loop of uncanny effect.

The piece began to wrap itself up in the same way that the dancer wrapped her wet hair in a towel piled on top of her head, reminiscent of a Golden Age film star, and true to form, Merrell didn’t disappoint. As our soloist minced toward an upstage door, she coyly turned her head, cocked her neck, and locked wide open eyes with the viewer, projecting, “I’m ready for my close up.”

For the Youth Ensemble, Merrell’s second offering, Concerning My Youth (Courtney Cox’s Bangs), was another unapologetic romp born of the choreographer’s interior landscape. Watching this strange collage, one got the feeling that the choreographer is at once fascinated and puzzled by the complexity of his aesthetic and understands that the only real attempt toward unpacking that happens by indulging in the very wonders that may mystify him. And so, what we got was a seamless non-sequitorship of harmonious separates, all pushed through the confluence of random cultural strands that constitute Merrell. One senses a wistful yearning in the way that he secures existential comfort through his use of influential milestones of his past. Of course, the title tells us that much, which is reaffirmed throughout the work with sundry allusions to his formative years: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “a blank VHS tape,” Santa Monica, “Abercrombie & Fitch meets a David Lynch nightmare.” How all of this translates, through the vehicle of his dances and the dancers who dance them, is important: It is through his heartfelt investment of self that the viewer gleans and co-experiences his passion, his urgent dispatch, his renunciant truths.

This brings me to the most salient characteristic of Andrew Merrell’s work. He craftily but cautiously unmasks his most vulnerable self through a make-believe haze of “cool” while never confusing artifice with art. It his ability to meld enui and nihilistic apathy with profound emotion and self-scrutiny that defines his artistry. In this way, although the two pieces he showed bore his unmistakable style, he shrewdly and accurately assessed the significance of age as he sculpted a piece for the younger dancer and a piece for the less callow. Neither piece was more legitimate than the other, simply different respective of the performing instruments.

Onsite was a successful experiment in a lot of ways. It pulled otherwise separate communities together while it debunked the rampant myth that all bodies are not rightfully dancing bodies. Amen to that!

*Jenny Stulberg choreographed work on the Youth Ensemble for the Onsite but was unable to perform that evening with a second piece of her own professional level choreography.

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Todd Courage (MFA Dance: Creative Practice) is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and dance scholar. Other influential interests include Art History, Literature, Food Culture, and Philosophy. He is currently artistic director of courage group and continues to build a diverse repertory of work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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