TBA DIARY: Zoe Scofield

8:30 pm Sunday, Sept. 16

Lincoln Hall, Portland State University


Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey, The devil you know is better than the devil you don't

This is TBA's last stage show, and what fest head Mark Russell calls “the beauty moment” of the 2007 festival. It's beauty of a fashionable sort: Chiseled young dancers, trained in ballet and yoga, contort classical carriage and carve great swathes of air space with slowly unspooling air tours and crisp developpes. The staging and costuming are striking, too, from the gray corset and white panties Scofield wears as she dances against a video projection of a river to the saffron glow that bathes the dancers while they sweep and stomp across the stage wearing apron-loincloth sets in gold and tangerine hues. The dancing is clean and the piece looks hip, but it feels bloodless.

It concludes with a Category 4 glitter storm, plastering the sweaty dancers in shiny bits. Stone-faced, they bow to a standing ovation. And that's it – the festival, which began under summery skies, has ended at a seasonal shift, with just a sliver of autumn moon lighting the drizzly ride home.

Photo courtesy of pica.org.