REVIEW: MOMENTUM DANCE COLLECTIVE

Momentum

By ANNE HERMAN
Daily News correspondent

Exploration is the name of the game for contemporary dance companies like Momentum Dance Collective. Choreographers and performers launch themselves into little-charted territory to see what they can discover and use in crafting a dance. Whether that new territory is in their minds or their bodies, what results can be exciting, dangerous and at times perplexing.

Momentum Dance Collective opened its second season with “Levels,” an hour long concert Friday night at the Sydney Laurence Theatre. Many of the works on the program were more familiar than alien, but the tang of artistic adventure was there.

The Sydney is not the best stage for dance. The sight lines can be poor since the stage is above the level of much of the audience. There is also little space for exits and entrances because the stage has small wings. The group, though, managed to create atmosphere with a clever use of lighting and a palette of music from artists such as Feist, the Electric Light Orchestra, Bond and Sigur Ros.

But it was the literal use of levels – platforms and steps at three different heights - that made this concert stand out. They became integral parts of each dance section and gave some of the dances more interest than the movements did.

There was a degree of continuity – some might say sameness – to many of the dances, at least in the concert’s first half. In fact, it was hard to tell where one dance ended and the next began. Most of the works here were dark. The dancers seemed to be very angry. Their arms and legs slashed the space. They threw their bodies across the stage, shouting physical insults to unseen enemies. They morphed into threatening creatures that crawled over the platforms and slithered down the stairs. They agitated each other, pushed each other away and then shivered and jerked alone.

The dancers softened and found greater emotional range to explore in the second half. At one point the group, dressed as “ladies of the night,” moved with a sensuality that connected them, as if they were a breed apart from the rest of humanity. They were their own community. This sense of mutual support echoed in other sections as the dancers stroked each other, lifted one another and moved to a rhythm that flowed through them all.

Six solos, one from each of the choreographer/dancers, were exclamation points to their dance styles and moods and gave the audience the opportunity to put a name to a dance section. Katherine Cunningham and Jessie Embley were full of violence, hurling their bodies through the semi-darkened space like demented animals. Beth Daly’s solo accented her gentleness as her long legs and arms leisurely caressed the space. And Becky Kendall was open in her dancing, offering her clean and simple movements to the audience in the knowledge that they would accept them with pleasure.

The Momentum Dance Collective performers led with their strengths Friday night. The six are strong dancers and choreographers who are willing to take physical risks. “Levels” did not always walk that artistic tight-rope, or have that hold-your-breath sense of danger. But there were enough moments of standing near the edge of something new to make this concert intriguing and satisfying.

Anne Herman holds a master's degree in dance and has been a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts.