Dance Review: Ririe-Woodbury's Interiors
By Dan Nailen
12/10/08 - 02:48 PM
Considering Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company's new show, Interiors, is a completely in-house production—with artistic director Charlotte Boye-Christensen choreographing all five segments for the six-dancer troupe (abetted for Interiors by former Ririe-Woodbury troupe member Ai Fujii Nelson)—I was taken with how diverse an array of talents were on display at a Wednesday dress rehearsal held for local school kids.
Of course, I shouldn't have been. The Ririe-Woodbury dancers are certainly capable of performing all manner of physically demanding styles. Boye-Christensen even noted that the troupe's collective fitness was key for how she designed Interiors, the brand-new dance that caps the show, which also includes older Boye-Christensen works from the past six years.
Interiors is certainly a physical triumph, as well as a visual one. Boye-Christensen collaborated with Salt Lake artist Trent Call on the work. Call provides fuzzy, electrified imagery on a film that plays on a giant screen behind the dancers as they jump, roll and toss each other through the air to an über-hip soundtrack of Nick Cave, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Yo La Tengo.
Call is repeatedly called a "graffiti artist" in descriptions of his work with Ririe-Woodbury, but you won't find any of his cartoonish imagery in Interiors. Instead, his film offers a transitory vibe echoed by the dancers' work on stage in front of the video screen. The piece is "a love story," according to Boye-Christensen, but don't expect any happily-ever-after finale; this is a love story full of conflict illustrated by the fierce physicality of the dancers.
The fact the dancers can pull of Interiors after performing four other lengthy works beforehand makes their work all the more impressive. Lost opens the show; it is Boye-Christensen's work inspired by the artwork of former Salt Lake area gangbangers. Set to the music of The Doors and Nick Cave, it's a rather intense, sometimes sinister opener.
Immediately after, though, the show takes a more frivolous turn with The Visit. Set in a pyschiatric ward, ala One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, the piece is danced to the sounds of The Beatles, including an operatic take on "Ticket to Ride" that I truly hope to never hear again, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the performances here. The Visit might have been my favorite of the five pieces in the show.
Add in the classically scored Bridge, featuring the three men and three women dancers in a creative showdown of sorts, and the tango-centric Chairs, Basically, and you have a full evening of dance offering so many stylisitic twists you'll find it impossible to get bored.
Interiors runs Thursday through Sunday at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Call 801-355-2787 or visit ArtTix outlets for tickets.
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