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My Name is a Blackbird
Choreography and Performance by Molly Shanahan
Music by Andrew Bird, Mark Booth, and David Parkovic
At The Building Stage
412 N. Carpenter St.
Chicago, IL
Visit http://www.madshak.com/events.html for tickets—15$
Thursday through Sunday at 8 pm
Running time 1 hour
Through April 29, 2007
“…and dance like no one is watching.” Satchel Paige, most likely
Molly Shanahan, founding choreographer of the Mad Shak dance company, is the choreographer and performer in this solo dance show, made in collaboration with six other Chicago-based artists. The hour-long work invites the audience to witness Shanahan creating the dance live from movements she has developed during the two-year gestation process.
The result is a work that does not resemble any of the dance being currently performed in Chicago. The movement is a mixture of off-kilter quotidian twitches, private rituals, abstract spirals, and intimate connections with the audience.
Watching the work without any background information, you would find it difficult to uncover any underlying themes; it seems to be an exploration of movement and a subversion of typical dance performance. After reading more about the process and listening to the post-performance discussion, I was able to parse the movements into three categories: self-discovery, self-consciousness, and self-interest. Shanahan is able to communicate these themes directly to each and every audience member through an intimacy that feels, at times, almost voyeuristic. The audience witnesses both sides of the dancer: the performer, displaying difficult combinations of muscle coordination; and the human, whose movements cease to be performative and seem exposed, vulnerable.
Another part of the subject of the work is collaboration. Shanahan displays a great deal of trust in her fellow artists, providing them with inspiration but leaving them to flesh out the details in their own way. For the three composers, she created boxes filled with various objects, images and even smell to aid them in their compositions. This interesting process, however, is not apparent in the performance; it is amazing how the results can be indistinguishable even though the processes are different.
All of the other artists involved seemed as though they were trying to stay out of the way as much as possible. The lighting changes were subtle—a shade whiter here, more yellow there. The costuming was a collage of beige and blacks that looked natural and liberating.
Sometimes watching modern dance is like watching someone get dumped in a foreign language: you don’t know what they are saying but you can get the gist. In order to get the gist of Shanahan’s performance, you have to pay attention to the subtlety; it is a rare opportunity in dance to be in a space intimate enough to receive communication from facial expressions and eye contact with the audience.
To watch this work is to focus your attention on one person and watch as she digs deeper into her psyche as she tries to become more comfortable with herself and her body. Being improvised, it lacks a structure that I, as a classically trained musician, have come to value. It is not about structure, and it is not about development of ideas; it is about creation of ideas and allowing those ideas flow from the bottom of the psyche. It is about watching someone as they try to perform in a state of Zen. It could be called self-indulgent; it could be called self-revealing. It is about witnessing something that changes as soon as it is witnessed—like an electron.
Somewhat Recommended
Evan Kuchar
evan.kuchar@gmail.com for comments
Date Reviewed: April 13, 2007
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