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One dance by each seems to be a choreographic study using all the techniques they’ve been taught. The choreographer selects a signature set of movements–in Carpenter’s Power Motive, one movement was a dancer drawing her hand slowly down the inside of her turned-in leg–and weaves a dance with them. These three choreographers prefer postmodern patterning, where each dancer in a group does her own variations on the movement, rather than the more familiar unison patterning, where every dancer does the same phrases. Despite the inventive movement, the similarity of choreographic approach makes these three dances seem cut from the same cloth.
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Much of the appeal of these young artists comes from the many possibilities we sense are opening up for them. It’s the appeal of innocence, of potential fruitfulness. The next step may be conscious awareness of their own particular gifts and preoccupations.
