On the weekend of October 5 and 6, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli, N.Y., presented Company Wayne McGregor, the final two performances in Kaatsbaan’s quite excellent 2024 “Fall Events” series. Despite it being October, Kaatsbaan ambitiously scheduled the performances for the dramatic “Mountain Stage,” an outdoor performance space in the middle of a field. The weather graciously obliged and provided two beautiful days for the performances.
Company Director Sir Wayne McGregor CBE is an internationally acclaimed choreographer and director who is known for his innovative and inventive approach to making dances and performance pieces. McGregor is, among other things, the resident choreographer for The Royal Ballet of Great Britain and the director of dance for the Venice Biennale. He has won numerous awards for his choreography and creativity, and he has pieces in the repertories of many major dance companies around the world. His interdisciplinary works encompass dance, film, music, visual art, technology, and science, and the work he presented at Kaatsbaan this weekend, “Autobiography (V100 + V101),” is no exception.
“Autobiography” has 23 sections of movement, reflecting the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human genome. The 23 sections of choreographed movement have been fed into an algorithm based on McGregor’s own genetic code, and, for each performance, and just prior to the performance, the algorithm randomly selects 15 sections of code—and therefore 15 sections of movement—which the dancers perform. The algorithm also chooses the order in which the dancers perform the sections; the only constants are the opening section and the closing section, and, if the piece is performed with its set (it was not at Kaatsbaan), the section with the set is always in the same place in the order. Moreover, with some limitations, which dancers perform which sections also changes, and the dancers get to choose how they will wear the simple but very intriguing and beautifully designed costumes by Aitor Throup.
One therefore assumes the “V100” and the “V101” in the title represent the 100th and the 101st “versions” of the work the company has performed since the piece was created in 2017.
The work as constructed is a little reminiscent of the way Merce Cunningham choreographed his dances, and of his performance “events,” where chance and randomness regularly play a role. Interestingly, McGregor’s compelling and riveting movement also has similarities to Cunningham’s. Like Cunningham, McGregor creates phrases that abruptly transition from balletic to “modern” (for lack of a better term), and from sharp and percussive to languid and stretched out, and then back again, all while dancers seemingly impulsively move through the space this way and that, subtly and no-so-subtly reacting to each other without touching, and even while touching (partnering). Of course, because the music, composed by Jlin, also known as Jerrilynn Patton, is specifically composed for each section of the work, the piece is ultimately quite different from a Cunningham event. And Jlin’s music, wide-ranging and eclectic compositionally, was wonderful.
At first glance, it seems like everything about the piece should probably not make sense, but somehow, miraculously, it all does—visually, musically, physically, and spatially. McGregor has mysteriously tapped into some unspoken and organic—but at the same time quite intellectual—human physical connectedness and communication expressing itself through movement and performance.
The success of “Autobiography” is certainly due in part to the dancers in the company, who are astonishing. Remarkably, these technically superb dancers are able to at once move with total commitment, total abandon, and total control, while retaining their distinctive and powerful individuality. These are dancers one simply cannot take one’s eyes off of. Of particular note: Rebecca Bassett-Graham, who was so comfortable with the movement she put it on like her favorite well-worn pair of jeans; Kevin Beyer, who used his expressively long and loose limbs to perfection; and Chia-Yu Hsu, whose precision and accuracy were mesmerizing.
Because the piece was performed outdoors, with the back of the performance space open to the air, the dancers were backlit by the daylight, and it was difficult to see their faces. Nonetheless, it seemed to this viewer that the performers, while clearly being human beings on the stage and not some kind of organism or strand of DNA, had been generally given the direction to keep themselves at a distance from the audience. It gave the piece a clinical feel, probably appropriate for a piece centered around the “science” of the human genome. At one point in a partnering section, however, Ms. Bassett-Graham smiled broadly at her partner, and, for this viewer, that opened up the flood-gates of other possible responses to the work. That moment added an interesting layer which seems worthy of exploration.
As usual, the open-air nature of the performance contributed in fortuitous ways. More than once, a train could be heard in the distance, and, at times, those train sounds blended beautifully into the music and became part of the composition. During a section when the dancers were working in duets, a pair of geese flew directly overhead, honking all the way. It was nature’s duet: a pair of geese, who supposedly mate for life, flying by and acknowledging a performance about pairs of chromosomes. It was hard to look up at the geese, and then at the dancers, and not get romantic about life on this planet.
While these excellent performances of “Autobiography” marked the close of Kaatsbaan’s Fall Events series, the Cultural Park does have at least two other events scheduled for the remainder of 2024, including, in December, “Nut/Cracked,” The Bang Group’s entertaining take on “The Nutcracker.” Information about Kaatsbaan, and tickets for future events, are available on Kaatsbaan Cultural Park’s website.
