Symbolism in dance can often get lost in the very movements created to express it. Ptero Dance Theatre’s newest performance, including “The Frame of Mind” with two other pieces, instead resonates its statements with a graceful precision.
Five dancers in matching puritanical dresses with white, schoolmarm collars open the three-part, hourlong performance with the piece “In the Forest,” and somber black music accents. Based on Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” it explores girls being kept from expression in thought and deed and uses movements both sexy and demure.
Influenced by a strongly Jewish youth, choreographer and artistic director Paula Present wanted to address the act of questioning constructs, if not finding answers.
“I was raised Jewish and the act of going to service was a duty,” says Present. “I know what it feels to be inspired, and thought: This doesn’t work for me.”
This discussion of spirituality continues into the second act, “The Unfolding,” with dancer Nicole La Cour’s lithe figure making its way through movements of pain and confusion – then rebirth. For Present, this piece is about taking steps and peeling off the layers of brainwashing and rituals, and, like a blossoming of flowers, finding what medium works for you – whether it’s movement, spirituality or something else. La Cour finds this sequence, with original music by Ariel A. Blumenthal, a personal one as well.
“To me, that piece is about having choices to make in so many different directions,” La Cour says. “When I am pointing at the crowd at the end, I am saying you too must make choices for yourself. It’s a very personal piece; I really feel it.”
Present, who has received praise for both her choreography and her own dance abilities, draws from myriad sources of her own and observed experience to craft her work. Hers is an intelligent approach, one not content with aesthetics alone.
In the third and premiere work, “The Frame of Mind,” Present’s imagery reflects – and questions – the mind as well as society. While her use of props remains limited, blindfolds, sticks and a freestanding doorframe aptly convey her message. A male dancer joins six others with arms and legs folded and the music swells, hinting at fear. Then a piano-only, lazy Sunday afternoon melody contrasts. The piece illustrates power struggle with blindfolds and their removal, showing captor and captive. The focal point, a powerful duet in the shifting doorframe, speaks of the battle for open thinking.
“The door represents the mind,” says Present. “Also on a global level, kids are getting trained to hate people. We are teaching narrow mindedness and dogma that leads to intolerance.”
Present says she wants to remind people to say ‘No’ to what has been ingrained, to be more open to questioning.
The performance comes together well when the dancers partner with one another, where an almost flirtatious chemistry is seen in their interaction, but it comes together best when they are moving in unison, which happens only a few times.
Since it was the premiere of “Frame of Mind,” there were, as Present acknowledged, some kinks to work through. While costumes were simple, there were a few mildly distracting technical difficulties with them. Dancers seemed like they needed to settle into the piece a bit more, with missteps and step corrections sprinkled throughout. But their intensity was palpable at times, like a hot oven opening into a cold room.
Even so, I was left with an underlying feeling that the dancers were holding back. In a powerful moment, where music with electronic undertones pulses and intensifies and you know it’s nearing the show’s end, I was left in anticipation of a corresponding crescendo in the dancers’ expression. The choreography itself gave the dancers a lot to work with, especially in its use of the floor. Yet perhaps it could have taken a few more risks to embrace the broader vocabulary for which Present is known.
Yet Present delivers fully on her mission: to make a bold statement on society and ourselves.
“Why do it if it’s not going to stimulate thought, at least, versus just beauty?” Present asks.
Indeed, each movement not only had a purpose in itself – and managed to remain unpredictable. Like a piece of music you expect to move from the notes of a tenor to those of a soprano but instead jumps back down to a bass, “Frame of Mind” surprises you at times. Especially if you let yourself get lost in it.
Ptero Dance Theatre
Through July 29th, Tickets: $18-24
Unknown Theater, 1110 Seward St., Hollywood
(323) 466.7781; www.unknowntheater.com
