Photo: Rachel Neville
Sunday July 28, 2013 – JANUSPHERE at the IATI Theater down on East 4th Street. I met my friend Roberto Villanueva (of BalaSole Dance Company) there on an overcast afternoon.
Aqura Lacey, Dora Kovac, Grace Song, Jason Jordan, Luke Manley and Matt Van appeared in KinderPlatz (Children’s
Place) which is set to a darkish, at times almost ominous score by Adyo and Deepbass. Despite its title, there’s nothing juvenile about this work. The dancers,
clad in soft creamy outfits, perform a series of trios and duets, often changing partners and configurations. They run and slide across the smooth floor, or stand still waving their arms in
unison windmill patterns; in these motifs the illusions of children’s
games are expresssed, but the mood remains distinctly ‘adult’.
A geodesic dome serves as a jungle gym, a cage, a bowl. At one point Ms Lacey climbs up onto the shoulders of the men, as if trying to escape thru the ceiling.
KinderPlatz is accompanied by original video projections created by visual artist Aleksandar
Cosic, featuring elements of architecture and shifting perspectives. What makes the work appealing though is the movement quality and the clarity of personal expression of the six indivdual dancers.
A Dancer’s Life opens with the diverse group of Janusphere
dancers appearing one-by-one in practice clothes, telling their stories of “why I became a dancer”. A solemn narrator calls the group to order and they start doing classroom pliés and
tendus, and working on partnering.
Then the competitive spirit takes over: to the ‘Lone Ranger’ theme from Rossini’s WILLIAM TELL overture, the dancers race about the space, bumping one another off in an effort to get ahead of the pack. In an audition scene, the dancers vie
fiercely for available work…and then comes the anguish of waiting for
a callback. When all but one dancer are called,
there’s relief and rejoicing, as well as a defensive narrative from the unchosen one. The work ends with the start of another day, another class.
In A Dancer’s Life, the cast of KinderPlatz are joined by Misei Daimaru, Stephanie van Doreen, and Ashley Whitson. In the theater’s intimate space, the personalities and individual attractiveness of the dancers gave the performance a sense of direct communication.
Oberon's Glade 