Nancy Meehan Dance Company

Nancy Meehan Dance Company
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, NYC

May 6, 2006

Reviewed by Karen Hildebrand

If you’ve ever watched the ocean along the Pacific Northwest coast, the imagery in Nancy Meehan’s Half Moon Breakers (2005) is clear. Six women in Cunningham-esque turquoise-splashed unitards lined up from short to tall, then peeled off in waves, cartwheeling and somersaulting across the floor. They became the quiet of the ebb and the roar of the flow as they clustered, then burst apart, running and slapping the tops of their feet against the hard wood. As the lip of a curling wave, they fluttered their fingers about their faces like froth.

In May Meehan, a former Erick Hawkins dancer, marked the 35th season of her company and a continuing collaboration with designer Anthony Candido and musician Eleanor Hovda. Under her skilled direction, her all-female company used the sprawling landscape of St. Marks Church well in their even ensemble work.

The imagery was less literal in from all sides, a premiere. And what were she and Candido thinking when they dressed the dancers in awkward pinafores of stiff burlap canvas over black bicycle shorts? Again, Meehan used a lineup motif. One at a time, seven women sprang from the line into a lunge, a fall, or other shapes. The stylized, modern dance walk and leaps of Half Moon Breakers gave way to heavy-footed strides. Meehan seemed to be playing with stillness—pose and repose. The dancers partnered in duets and trios while others stood still, until all fell softly into a connected clump of bodies.

In Bones Cascades Scapes (1973) the dancers’ costumes made them look like giant hemp mops from the neck down, the rope strands swinging like ape arms. As the dancers struck balances and swept across the expanse of St. Mark’s, they left bits of hemp in their wake. They twirled and jumped into tribal squats and fell into Meehan’s signature moments of quiet.

Throughout the evening Hovda made atonal percussion collages by plucking piano strings, stroking gourds and bowls, and sounding chimes and other nontraditional instruments. The music and movement were of one universe, the product of an odd, organic, and unique artistic voice.