BY AMBER ROSE

In print | Published October 1, 2009

“I want you to get together” is the melancholy plea that forms the musical background of “Portraits,” the dance performance choreographed by Zane Booker, founder and artistic director of the Smoke, Lilies and Jade Arts Initiative. Though the performance, held last Wednesday, Sept. 23 in LPAC’s Troy Dance Lab, was a mere snippet of “a work in progress,” Booker has already managed to create an emotive and jarring show. The single song to which the entire piece is choreographed is just one example of Booker’s careful planning and precision. As Saint Germain’s voice wails, “Put your haaa-aaaands together one time,” the singer’s emotion transmits into the narrative of each dancer, adding intensity to each individual characterization.

Characterization is the name of the game, as the title “Portraits” might give away. In a brief introduction to this piece, Booker discusses the creative process, stating that each dancer did “extensive research on a historical figure of his or her choice,” and in turn, used their respective idols to create a character of their own. The character’s story – which would become the fusion of each dancer’s own story and the story of his or her historical figure – would first be recorded through diligent note-taking, and eventually, interpreted through elegant and awe-inspiring movement.
Booker’s piece opens up first without music. To maintain a consistent rhythm and to create a crescendo of percussion, the dancers start out snapping, at first lightly, and then build to a climax. From the very beginning, it is obvious that a constant pressure looms in the world that Booker seeks to express.

When the music begins, it lets the audience know that a climax is not reached. Though the build-up and release of the percussive snapping may be over, Rose Rouge elegantly reconstructs the tense background with energizing jazz and drums. The moaning vocals of Saint Germain sound almost pained, which, contrasted against the snappy rhythm, forms the first duality in a set of elegant conflicts expressed through movement.

Dualities abound in the overall characterization of the five stories told by each dancer. First up is Emma Kraus, who does a series of movements consisting of spins, kicks and, most strikingly, swats as if swatting a swarm of pestilent locusts. Kraus’ story is isolated in the sense that while she performs at center stage, the rest of the group is at the periphery, at times dancing in unison (perhaps representing the force of a societal group), and at times simply staring intently at the unfolding story.

The most memorable movements include Justin Bryant’s steps in which he keeps one arm behind his back (taut ,as if held by someone) and does a series of off-balance/on-balance movements, consistently catching himself with great precision the very instant before he falls.

Similar moves (as well as a tumultuous series of locust-swatting) were performed by Maya Johnson, but her most memorable moment was the finale of “Portraits” in which Johnson faces the audience and does a series of facial contortions. Aided by the swooping motion of her long-fingered, writhing hands, Johnson plays peak-a-boo with the audience, in what seems a self-administered test of her breaking point. As her hands reveal her face, Johnson alternates between expressions of caricatured ecstasy and what seems to lie beneath: shameful agony. The psychotic grin is nothing short of scary.

The finale is perhaps the most striking duality in Booker’s piece, but it is certainly not the only one. Booker cultivates a sense of coincidental oppositorum with the alternation of off-balance/on-balance movements, slow and fast, messy and clean, even unity and separateness.

“Portraits” thoughtfully engages in the struggle between the individual and the group, whether it be a struggle of prejudice, sexuality, identity, race, sickness, conformity or other. Fittingly, the duality in “Portraits” goes beyond its choreography. Dual, in fact, is the purpose of the show. While the audience leaves having absorbed another work of beauty, for better or worse, they also leave with something else. The context, themes and messages of “Portraits” lead its viewers to contemplate their own inner chaos, and therein lies the beautiful pain.

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