Suchu Dance's Ella Paradise premieres tonight at Barnevelder Theater and will run for the next two weekends. Suchu's Artistic Director Jennifer Wood has been working with a team of eleven dancers to create the new piece, which, when viewed from the theater's elevated in-the-round seating, highlights the intricate pattern-weaving maneuvers of the performers on the floor. Though Suchu is a contemporary dance company, the show is dressed in old-fashioned charm, evoking a sense of familiarity and reminiscence in the audience through its costuming and music as it progresses through what feels like a choreographed daydream.
Wood spoke with the Houstonist after a preview performance last night to talk about how the show came together and the collaboration between herself and the dancers. As with almost all her shows, she says, Ella Paradise didn't begin with a specific idea or inspiration but grew out of open experimentation with movement between herself and the dancers. For this piece, they focused on the shape of the larger group, playing with movement in circles, triangles, grids, and star shapes among others. There is a point in the performance where one of the dancers even seems to draw out an imaginary wandering line on the floor for another to follow. While shape and formation came to the forefront of the new piece, Wood opened up a lot of the individual actions to the dancers, asking them to choose whatever movement came quickly and naturally to them and not to overthink their steps. The effect of this technique is part of what makes Ella Paradise so enjoyable to watch — the large sweeping formations of the dancers' bodies are composed of short, variable steps that are repeated and mirrored by others. Given that the show is also full of inversions, handstands, and tumbling — another category of movement Wood wanted to work with — it is no wonder that Suchu uses the word "kaleidoscopic" in their own description of the choreography.
Wood is able to create a lot of variation out of these parameters, from parts where the dancers retain their separation and individuality within the group formations to a middle section where they are constantly cycling through lifts and holds, attaining an uncanny unity that most resembles hands making shadow-puppets. The progression of the music and lighting keeps the show from stagnating in any section too long. The audio distills a few recognizable songs down to playful samples, from the introductory bubblings and cooings of Serge Gainsbourg's "Comic Strip" and "Pauvre Lola" to the string swells of Frank Sinatra's "Some Enchanted Evening". Voices always seem on the verge of coming into the samples, whether through heard breaths or nonsense syllables, but the restraint and hesitation of the music echoes the light and careful touches of the dancer's interactions and the curious and almost naive way they chase each other around the stage. The choreography continually plays with a sense of child-like distraction and wonderment, providing good argument that actions don't have to coalesce into some sort of sublime unity to signify that pleasure and joy abound.
The title of Ella Paradise is not so much a definition or description as it is a verbal analog to the rest of the show. It is a woman's name, suggestive of an older time, that rings with a sort of lushness and femininity — not just an imaginary name, but the name of an imaginary woman, a fantasy, like the performance itself, that ebbs and flows like drifting thought. The women's costumes are colorful patchwork dresses that achieve a disheveled elegance. As the music and choreography change throughout the show, the costumes come to resemble the garb of music hall dancers, island castaways, mischievous sprites, and hollywood starlets. The two male dancers are dressed less ostentatiously in simple browns, but in the details of their construction the men's outfits also open themselves up to a mutable narrative that the audience can play at interpreting.
Not all of the show wears an old-fashioned air, however, as electronic music and exotic beats also appear in several sections. Even so, the tone of the show does not lose itself and the transitions are in no way jarring. Often the dancers might suddenly fall to the floor, the men crawl and jitter as if sensitive to some change unfelt by the women, and all of them repeatedly dive under the rafter seats to let others take charge of the floor. If the show is akin to a daydream, it is an active one, as good at keeping the audience's attention as it is at letting its own wander and jump to find something new.
The show will be performed at 8pm, Thursday through Saturday this week and then Friday and Saturday of next week with a closing performance an hour earlier on Sunday, March 28. Tickets range from $10 to $18 depending on the night and whether they are bought in advance. There is also an opening-night dinner being held at 7pm tonight for which tickets cost $29.99, including admission to the show.
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Photo: Lorie Garcia
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