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With last week's Abraham.In.Motion show, White Bird further cemented its role as Portland's top dance importer. New York choreographer Kyle Abraham's company mixed sleek and strong modern movement with elements of hip hop, sound bytes of Black Lives Matter rally cries and projections of past and present protests for its performances at the Newmark Theater. It was easily one of the most multifaceted programs we've seen this year.
The show's highlight, "Absent Matter," came midway through. Motion there was fast and frenzied—until dancers froze suddenly and posed, with a knee cocked and toe en-pointe, while pictures of rallies and police video footage played in the background. Soloist Penda N'Diaye spun at a frenetic pace, then morphed into jerking hip hop pops, making a striking shift from expansive fluidity to tight street style. And Abraham's carefully-chosen soundtrack was at least as diverse. Collaging pieces of drum-heavy jazz, protest chants and samples from artists like Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, the music was almost as prominent as the movement.
"Absent Matter" almost ironically contrasted the show's much gentler first piece, "The Quiet Dance." Set to Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other Time," the aptly-titled dance was mostly liquid, lithe movements and moments of isolation. The movement verged on goofy at times—the five dancers making baby-rocking motions while rapidly kicking one knee in-and-out, or waggling their arms like kids pretending to be elephants. But it wasn't playful. Instead, each of the dancers approached the choreography with a slow and serious grace that seemed bittersweet, fitting of the theme of isolation and the sparse, delicate score.
The third and final piece, "The Gettin," was an exclamation point of an ending. Flashy and tense in its delivery, the choreography was amplified by a stark, black and white projected backdrop that started out looking like a Rorschach Test. In an unsettling turn, it came into focus as a photo of the Ku Klux Klan. On stage, the duet/face-off between black dancer Jeremy Neal and white dancer Matthew Baker reached a hypnotizing tension. At first casually ignoring each other, the two strutted around in circles before coming together in chest bumps and body rolls that put the dancers face to face.
The duet—and the show—ended with a slowly-building drum roll that amped up tension before petering off. As the dancers followed suit, stalking heatedly away from one another, Abraham.in.Motion ended its first Portland appearance on the theme of unresolved tension. The show was more than satisfying though, a blend of audio and visual components in stunning harmony.
Willamette Week