Australian sisters Melissa Toogood, who was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and now is a teacher of his technique, and Jodie Toogood, who has participated in the Merce Cunningham Trust’s fellowship program, devised a most exciting program with sensational dancing.
First up was a series of solos from Loose Time, Antic Meet and Rainforest choreographed by modern dance legend Merce Cunningham, presented as part of the Cunningham Centennial celebrations and bringing the celebrations to a close – powerful , fragmented jewels.
Performed by sisters Jodie and Melissa Toogood they were dazzling. Cunningham’s tricky , demanding choreography requires very polished technique and precise control. The two Toogoods were full of controlled yet explosive , coiled energy.There were sculptural curves, angular arms , slightly off-kilter balances and the bodies forming shapes in space. Ballet moves are taken analysed and restructured.
The first solo , with Melissa in a grey unitard, was full of darting and leaping The second , Jodie with a prop of an umbrella with a specially wired light , required very fast fleet footwork and strong, very flexed feet .
The third solo, with Melissa , long hair flowing, in a white unitard decorated at various points with ribbons , showcased some dizzying turns.
Then came Passagen , choreographed by Pam Tanowitz and performed by the two sisters , one in a red one in a green outfit. Tanowitz is a celebrated New York based choreographer and collaborator. She has choreographed for the New York City Ballet and the Royal Ballet will be performing her work in 2020.
John Zorn’s eponymous soundtrack, a bravura violin performance ,was sharp and spiky . As for Cunningham , counts for the movements, phrasing and precision are extremely important .The work was quite formal in some ways, and included repeated phrases of movement, a use of the deep Graham plie , lunges , bend and stretch , ‘windmill’ arms and a fracturing of traditional ballet steps blended with basic movements.
Frozen tableaux poses were contrasted with very fast, darting movements. The two Toogoods leave the stage at one point, only to return, from opposite sides of and at different depths of the stage, progressing sideways on quite high demi -pointe. When they converge a new duet begins with more support and contact . Are they mirroring each other or two halves of one identity? The dancing is intermixed with an empty stage of dappled lighting and music .
After interval came Set A/part, choreographed and performed by the Twogoods who were joined onstage by Kenneth E. Paris 111 . Paris 111 also designed the visuals – a constant projection on a back screen that, whilst fascinating, was at times quite distracting . The sisters have often been apart, living on different continents , weaving in and out of each other’s lives .
The work combined contemporary dance with visual art in an exploration of place and identity , striving to reconcile the kind of limbo you find yourself in while travelling and/or living abroad and also questioning one’s sense of home. The screened projection begins with a time lapse photography sequence of flowers in a vase and then constantly changes to become various multi layered paintings or screen prints and also collages of memories using photos and books that are eventually torn and destroyed, for example.
The choreography (Cunningham in style) and live performance was intense and at times used theatrical haze. Strong sculptural body shapes were created in space. Backward walks, runs, angular arms , turns in a circle and voiceover are included as well as slinky solos .
Sometimes the two Twogoods mirror each other in their movements, at others they dance in unison. Towards the end of the piece there are entwined , interlocking segments a sense of supporting each other.
Kenneth E. Paris 111 was also involved , shifting the two mobile boxlike parts of the scenery and also pulling down the rolled panels suspended in the tripart door like shape to ultimately reveal that the panels create a triptych of a single painting . At the end he appears and reads a short passage from a book.
But it left us pondering an enigma, did anything actually happen ?
An intriguing performance
SET /A PART was for one performance only 20 December 2019 at the Newtown High School of Performing Arts.
Running time – just under 90 minutes including interval
