Picking up the Slack

NCDT's Kara Wilkes in costume designed by Erika Diamond. Photo by Jeff Cravotta

Thanks to a thoughtful friend, I had the pleasure of attending North Carolina Dance Theatre’s “Innovative Works” performance last Saturday night, which as you might have guessed, featured a series of original pieces by emerging and established choreographers created specifically for the NCDT dancers. While this outpouring of new ideas and energy can sometimes go amiss here and there, Saturday’s performance was one stellar performance after another.
That said, if I had to choose a weak link, it would have to be the opening number, which mixed language and movement in a way that frankly didn’t work. I enjoyed the movement, how can you not enjoy watching these performers own the stage, but the premise – a beatnik-inspired setting complete with bongo drums and moments of spoken word between which the dancers would perform a movement series – seemed oddly dated, considering the “eco” theme that drove the evening’s program. More than that, the words didn’t connect with the movement.
That got me thinking. The arts have such power because they defy words. Art replaces words with movement, sound, images, color. Architecture, too, does a bit of this, offering spatial experience as explanation of what architects do. How do you add words with it becoming forced? Didactic?
Art and architecture should never have to pick up where words leave off or vice versa. It the dialog between the two that gives texture and depth to the experience.
The first number on Saturday night required the dancers to pick up the slack, and, believe me, they did beautifully. While it didn’t detract from my evening, that uneven exchange clarified to me why I care about what I do as a writer and editor in design and the arts. Maybe NCDT will get one of my kind involved next time.