Voyager

 
 
VOYAGER
Henderson/Castle
COMMISSIONED AND PRODUCED BY Toronto Dance Theatre AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Christopher House
CHOREOGRAPHED BY Ame Henderson
CO-CREATED AND PERFORMED BY Alana Elmer + Marie Claire Forté + Mairi Greig + Christopher House + Yuichiro Inoue + Pulga Muchochoma + Jarrett Siddall + Kaitlin Standeven + Naishi Wang
Music: Jennifer Castle
 
Agora De La Danse
Montreal Quebec
May 21-June 4 2015
 
REVIEWED BY TED FOX FOR WWW.EVIDANCERADIO.COM

 
 
Eleven metal frame chairs randomly placed. Some overturned.
 
Evening light pours through the windows.
 
A cat looks down from a window ledge in a building behind.
 
A dancer comes out. Assumes a position. Begins gesturing.
 
Eight others follow. Randomly scattering themselves like the chairs.
 
Focusing on dancing without stopping. Never repeating movements.
 
Isolated from each other. Yet very much together in the creation of this piece.
 
Like pedestrians engrossed in texting and cellphone conversation.
 
Moving to their destination while choreographed by the urban architectural space around them.
 
Oblivious to all happening around them. Barely aware of the traffic noise.
 
Jennifer Castle, pianist. Words randomly read off sheets on piano.
 
Words floating in the air. Into a spatial void. Deconstructed. Poetic. Snippets of phrases occasionally heard. Always there. Floating into our consciousness.
 
Like the background music in bars, restaurants and cafes.
 
Audience has to make decisions while viewing. Zeroing in on individual dancers? Looking at the piece as a whole? Creating a sort of Attention Deficit response like multi-tasking.
 
Creating a sort of tension in those reacting.
 
I realize I am interacting in my head. Are those around me reacting the same way? Is Henderson breaking down barriers between audiences from within?
 
The dancers, in order to concentrate on not repeating, become technological dancing bodies.
 
What would happen if we no longer passively watched, but became physically involved.
 
Would this be a form of rediscovery of our childhood bodies?
 
When role-playing in the theatre of life comes naturally.
 
Playing all roles of actor, dancer, singer, clown.
 
Dancers seem to interact a bit in the end.
 
A gesture directed at another. Facial responses to us and them.
 
A body falls.
 
Offstage voice: "Time!" Movement ceases.
 
Audience reacts in conversation. Some agitated and angry.
 
Dancer I do not know sitting beside me says: "I can go to a dance class and see this. It’s like watching a research project.”
 
Voyager works as a conceptual art performance.  There is a task. Stimulates conversation.  Raises questions.
 
In the end the cat has left the window. Curtains drawn. The chairs still there. Never used.