Chicago’s Next Dance Festival
But events like Chicago’s Next Dance Festival, now in its second year, are today’s version of older choreographers’ showcases like those at MoMing, which provided opportunities for mostly modern-dance choreographers to show their work–audiences were happy if the hit-to-miss ratio was even. Like these, the Next Dance festival, organized by Winifred Haun, showcases a second tier of choreographers and companies newer or smaller or farther from the mainstream than the artists in the Dance Chicago series (though there is some overlap: Christine Munch, Haun, and Mad Shak Dance Company, all on this program, also showed works at the earlier festival). Since companies like these are often training grounds, a festival like this illuminates the health of the local dance community. (The second weekend features five more artists in an entirely different program.)
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A more experienced choreographer like Frank Fishella puts the dance before the music. In his Desire Dance no. 7–Watching You Watching Me he uses several pieces of music–Elvis Costello, the Brodsky Quartet, Tito Puente, and a commisioned piece by Lloyd Brodnax King–to deepen the feeling in different sections. The simple story is that a lonely gay man steals another man’s man but then can’t handle his new lover. Fishella, who plays the lonely man, introduces him first in a slow march across the stage, his hands bound behind his back and a raincoat held by the collar in his mouth. Drawing a letter out of the coat pocket, Fishella dances with it as Costello sings what the letter says. Because the audience identifies with Fishella’s character, who’s given a humorous twist, when Fishella steals Wilfredo Rivera from Scott Putman we root for Fishella. All three men look sexy in their tight black shorts and shirts, but Rivera’s hauteur clearly makes him the object of desire. Besides the tingle of desire, the most affecting moments are the men’s leaps–the moments when these strong men, at the height of a leap, seem weightless. Fishella and King are still experimenting with the music, debating whether Tito Puente works well in the ending trio. But because Desire Dance no. 7 is more dramatic than musical, the dance has its own logic and doesn’t depend on the music to make emotional sense.
