The Reviews Archive

Great Dancers Perform Fun Dances With Often Long Convoluted Intent

The classes at the Schiff Dance Collective have produced some stunning dancers, some of which are appearing this week in the Collective’s Boulder Fringe Festival performance of “Move Me” (Dairy Performance Space). “Move Me” consists of three dances, two of them are long and convoluted in meaning, and one is a poignant love duet that is, if anything, too short, leaving its audience wanting more.

On Monday August 19 the well performed, long, convoluted dances consisted of “Courage To Change,” choreographed by Katie Anhalt, and “Memory,” choreographed by Jenny Schiff. Both dances were initially fun to watch given the dancers therein, and both eventually exceeded performance life with minimal insight into any intention or meaning. That meaning being hard to discern despite the titles, and relatively long program notes. In fact “Courage to Change” seemed to say “We will accept you if you dress like us, play like us, and especially if you wear your “hoodie” up: but, we’ll really love you if you take it down.” In short, the metaphors became what the dance was about. “Memory” read about the same way. Both dances were blessed with great dancers and choreography that built unison phrases out of duets, trios, and solos only to have the unison dissolve back into phrasing on smaller groups. There were some elements of the movement choices that seemed to almost come from “competition dance” with throw away hand stands, and over the back moves, but even that was entertaining. Jenn Dunton’s role en pointe in “Memory” was especially well performed, her presence often being what gave the piece life.

A duet choreographed by Kevin O’Keefe and Schiff, with the long title “Sometimes in Relationships We Need to Fall Apart to Come Back Together," was exceptional in content and performance. O’Keefe’s movements took his character from deliberate “hip-hop thoughtlessness,” to anger, despair, and to tenderness, while Schiff’s took her through pleading, deliberate vamping, and voluptuous loving, to the same tenderness as O’Keefe. The duet developed well, and then ended abruptly, needing just another thirty seconds to become complete.

The Schiff Dance Collective is a solid company, with ever-so competent dancers, which are young and enthusiastic. Their dances are constructed from deep places, but could read better with some editing and some less obtuse narratives. The dates and times of the remaining performances of “Move Me” are given in the Fringe catalogue and on their website at www.boulderfringe.com.

Donald K. Atwood MFA, Ph.D. atwood@worlddancereviews.com

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