LOCUS SOLO DANCE
Jeff Friedman seems to be an open, trusting man, and his dances seem to be nakedly emotional and filled with religious feeling and mysticism. But they fail to convey religious awe or much emotion. Friedman’s dancing is liquid and expressive, but he doesn’t trust his material, his audience, or even himself.
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The evening’s first dance demonstrates the problem. In this excerpt from Journeyman, the lights come up on Friedman sitting in a folding chair as he says, “Islands are born from the sea, erupting from the center, throwing up ash.” Friedman’s text tells the story of islands–how they evolve until they reach their mature state, like New Zealand with its shy, flightless kiwi birds. While sitting, Friedman makes large, abstract gestures with his hands and arms, in an honest moment presenting himself as a man alone, a mature island, a shy but complete person. At that moment, I looked forward to where these images would lead.
Chicagoan Nana Shineflug’s On Becoming Ptah is a better dance than the others Friedman performs; it features a few repeated movements that become lodged in memory, such as a lunge with an outstretched arm and two extended fingers, and a spiritually profound passage from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, read on tape by Jeff Abell. The dance almost works, but Friedman’s emotive dancing is just silly in the presence of such calm, somber words.
