Luckily, I was able to see the Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company in their Millennium Stage performance last Wednesday (I previewed the performance in an earlier post). The company performed two pieces: 1) TAKE; a dance in the park and 2) Sugar.
Both pieces were impressive exercises in teamwork. If you watch the video on the Kennedy Center's website, you'll see that most of the company's performance occurred in the air. In TAKE, the dancers whizzed across the stage in detailed choreographic patterns, narrowly missing each other. My favorite moments were when two dancers worked as partners and began spinning so quickly that it was difficult to determine where one body ended and the other began.
The dancers' movements in TAKE were effortless, but the truth is that maneuvering one's body around the cables requires incredible upper body and core strength. I've gotten flustered trying to dance with props like fans and gift boxes, never mind heavy cables. The aerial movements seemed like something out of Cirque du Soleil and allowed the audience to leave reality behind.
Such fantasy, floating movements in TAKE were juxtaposed by dancer Sally Edwards' performance in Sugar. From my interpretation, Sugar is about overcoming the physical limitations of life. Edwards narrated her performance to help explain the reality of her life with Spina Bifida. I was really moved by how courageous Edwards is, her high level of energy and her ability to dance in her wheelchair. Edwards also had awesomely expressive arms. I hold, and always will, that arms are one of the most emotional, artistic parts of a dancer.
A tourist sitting behind me stumbled upon the performance, but was almost speechless at its end. "I've never seen anything like it," he exclaimed to nobody in particular. I hadn't either.
