Schiff Searches for Joy and Settles for Flower Petals

To say Jenny Schiff searches in places deep within human emotions to build dances is an understatement. And she and her dancers always find those places to points of total personal involvement. Then Schiff builds bridges to her audiences. Sometimes she gets there and sometimes she leaves a span suspended in space. She and her company, "The Schiff Dance Collective," find those emotional places once again in "Project Joy/Full," which they presented this weekend (Saturday October 17, 2009) at Boulder's Dairy Center for the Arts, and will present next Saturday (October 24th) at the Denver School of the Arts. The work is about confronting fear and finding joy, about moving away from negativity. Emotions used to build the work came from the dancers themselves and from interviews with people who they feel found, and give joy, even when surrounded by a world that engenders fear.

In the work that FEAR is wonderfully embodied by Kevin O'Keefe, who dressed in black, with eyes goggled to emphasize uncaring detachment, uses a street based hip-hop motif to dominate dancers individually and in ensemble. O'Keefe's counter emotion resides in Emma Fields, a wonderful, deep alto based singer who accompanies herself on acoustic guitar. O'Keefe's dominance is total. Field's lovely voice and acoustic guitar are totally diminished, not only by O'Keefe, but by the startling contrast of her performance to the recorded sound tracks of groups like "Metallica," with that sound virtually filling the space. It seems every time Field makes any headway in capturing the dancers' emotions that O'Keefe's dominating character and huge recorded sound re-establishes fear. As a result Field's attempts began to border on trite and one is left wondering just what the dancers find in the flower petals they discover in six upside down umbrellas.

What "Project Joy/Full" does provide is some excellent dance, by some amazing dancers - Hailey Corr, Alexi Bautista, Tiffany Halay, Laura Jaffe, Nicole O'Farrell, and Schiff herself. A duet by Halay and Bautista is in and of itself worth whatever one pays to see this concert, and Halay's presence and embodiment of Schiff's often complex and rapid movement phrasing is a delight to watch. So maybe Schiff's bridge on "Project Joy/Full" does leave one suspended in space. Maybe it does make one wonder just how powerful fear can be. But that is something worth contemplating.

Donald K. Atwood MFA, Ph.D.

© Copyright World Dance Reviews 2009