Wit, Wisdom and Abstract Dance Meditations With Sean Curran Company

by Theresa Herron

Clean, clear, fresh, witty and entertaining are adjectives that come to mind when thinking of the Sean Curran Company. Curran presented two vivid dance programs recently--one in May at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery and another at SummerStage in Central Park's Rumsey Playfield on July 7.

At St. Mark's Church the company performed four works including a
premiere. "Symbolic Logic" (1999) with music by Sheila Chandra blended East Indian rhythms, dance and yoga with pure geometric angularity. Curran gracefully wove ten dancers creating linear shapes throughout the space with an occasional surprise hip thrust, head swivel or balletic jump tossed in for good measure. Some of the dancers' arm movements were reminiscent of vogue-ing with a Shiva-like twist to them. Curran often works with repeating patterns and phrases of movement in canon throughout his choreography for an echoing or after-imaging effect. The music and dynamics of this piece progressed from a slow, meditative but focused lull to a more rapid,  full-forced power. The dancers were especially articulate with their extensions and execution of Curran's geometry in space.

The quizzically entitled "The Nothing That Is Not There, and The Nothing That Is" (1998) possessed an air of somber quietude. Four dancers   performed, a duet for two men and a duet for two women. Again, Curran developed themes of angularity within the duets and quartet. The women's pyrotechnic, powerhouse jumps were especially memorable in this work. The one drawback was the addition of trite one-legged handstands. Too many choreographers have already used this particular move to death, and Curran's work is so much more imaginative and refreshing without them.

The tranquil and melancholic "Six Laments" (1999) featured several
solos and duets with various dancers in juxtaposition to three screens,
designed by Kieran McGonnell, depicting a baby, a young man and an old man.   Melodic flutes and a bluesy adagio by Seamus Egan and Wini Horan set a quiescent, mesmerizing atmosphere for the dance. Very lovely torso moves with upwardly and outwardly reaching and opening arms gave this work presence. Curran himself was the most emotional performer with his jarring, quick-fire weight and direction shifts and whipping double pirouettes landing just so on the ground. His appealing demeanor was reminiscent half of a feral puck and half a vulnerable child. A solo performed in silence by a pregnant dancer near the baby screen was rendered with especial sensitivity.

New York City gives us the "gift of privacy" and the "jewel of   loneliness" so Curran expressed to the audience in the premiere of "Approaching A City." This was the most humorous work on the program, though with sad underlying themes of isolation in the City. Curran sang, danced, acted, recited poems and text, and manipulated seven accompanying mannequins in this solo performance. Evoking a memory of Gene Kelly, but with a more gutsy, blues style, and a down-to-earth realism--no escapism here--Curran was able to mellifluously blend his zany clowning movement and humor with a serious message about life in New York City. Text adapted from E.B. White's "This is New York," as well as several other poems, songs and musical works, including Marty Beller's "Overture and Theme for Sean," were incorporated to help convey why New Yorkers come, settle and stay here--what "internal engines" make them tick. Sometimes people with the most keen and depressing cognizance also become the greatest comedians, perhaps to facilitate survival or perhaps in backlash to the pain they see or experience. And so Curran ends the work, in a gem of a moment, reminding us of the "importance of laughter"--despite the craziness, cruelty or loneliness we inevitably encounter to a certain degree living, loving, working and playing here in New York City.

"Abstract Concrete" was commissioned by Central Park's  SummerStage. The premiere on July 7 featured a live percussion score composed by Tigger Benford and performed by Benford, Marty Beller and Martha Partridge. The live music added the extra electric spark to complement Curran's  choreography, which was rendered in collaboration with the dancers. Despite the irony of the title, the name was apropos to describe the abstract   movement performed with concrete, clean precision. Again, Curran used phrases executed in canon, as he oft does, to design an echoing effect in the choreography. Ten dancers performed in lines, in small groups and in duets, carrying and lifting each other, resonating off of each other. Torso curves, carving and slicing through space, refreshingly highlighted this piece. Dancers Amy Brous, Eun Jung Choi, Marisa Demos and Heather Waldon-Arnold particularly stood out for their purity of line and form.

The second and last work performed at SummerStage was "Folk Dance
For the Future" (1997) set to vivacious traditional Irish Mouth Music.
Curran, who started his dance training in boyhood with traditional Irish
step dancing, incorporated modern, ballet and Irish dance vocabulary, as well as just plain Irish spiritedness mixed with lots of Curran-esque humor. Dancers were especially laudable in their execution of allegro moves to the Irish vibes, never missing a nuance of drama or attitude. Heather Waldon-Arnold was a particularly charismatic figure with her improvised solos. Some performers don't need to be alive to perform well, as Curran uniquely expressed in a scene with his use of dancing baby dolls animated with the assistance of the live dancers. Curran himself romped in and out like an energetic flash.

An air of melancholia and a sense of the desolate tend to pervade
Curran's more recent pieces, as well as prayer-like abstraction. Yet his
past joviality still pops up in his work, but with deepened strength,
solidity and sensitivity as time and Sean Curran Company move on.

Photos: (from the top) "That Place, Those People" w/ Eun Jung Choi, J.M. Rebudal, Peter Kalivas, & Donna Scro-Gentile; "Six Laments" w/ Tony Guglietti & Marisa Demos; "That Place, Those People" w/ Tony Guglietti, J. M. Rebudal, Marisa Demos, & Donna Scro-Gentile.  All photos are by Lois Greenfield.