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SYREN Modern Dance: From Vermont to the Big Apple

Dance Review

NEW YORK – SYREN Modern Dance, led by Artistic Directors Kate Mehan and Lynn Peterson, has come a long way. In five years they've gone from graduating SUNY Purchase College's prestigious dance program to establishing a vibrant, highly polished professional company that premiered its second full-length work (and fifth New York season) last weekend, Feb. 1-3, at Ailey's Citigroup Theater. Anyone familiar with performance — and the dance scene in particular – knows this is no small achievement.

Inspired by the history of ancient Egypt, particularly during the Exodus, "Dig" takes us through various events of the period, from the darkness, plagues and smiting of the first-born, to the parting of the Red Sea and songs of praise.

The company was so polished, with choreography so deftly crafted and articulated (down to the last finger joint) that there is no questioning its professional stature. Movement vocabulary came teeming at us – with just enough hints of the well-known stylized Egyptian friezes (here a flexed foot, there a line of linked two-dimensional figures presented sideways with arms forward and back, legs straight) to keep us connected to the period without becoming mimetic.

For example, one section whose title I can't figure out (more on that later) began with all seven dancers sitting evenly spaced, sphinx-still, in a line across the front of the stage. Legs crooked to the side, torsos spiraled, they leaned on the palm of a single, inward-rotated arm, heads screwed over their shoulder, focusing on some distant horizon. Beginning stage right, a single figure rose to do a short solo; then two more got up to begin a duet eventually enjoining the next in line, and so on; until at the section's end, a single dancer – farthest left – remained alone, still fiercely frozen, still penetratingly fixated on that far-off point, still holding the place of memory in a timeless desert.

Such masterful use of stillness versus motion, of levels, of ones and twos against a group, of body parts (fists, creeping fingers, lifted chin), of ostinato (a persistently reiterated musical/movement phrase), and of fresh versions of canonic form (as when a reverting canon began simultaneously at both ends of a "V" and progressed, inexorably, to the last central figure) exemplified the kind of sophisticated use of compositional elements evident throughout the evening's work.

The single prop, 25 feet of bold red material, unwound from the trunk of a single dancer and lengthened by each ensuing one until it stretched across the stage, was a clear metaphor for the Red Sea. Used, as it was (e.g., to catch falling figures) only strengthened its meaningful, rather than purely decorative, function.

Of course, all these choreographic devices were particularly satisfying for me to note since I was Mehan's choreography teacher during her SUNY years. But learning the elements of composition is one thing; being able, as she is, to employ them within, and in the service of, a specific theme is another. Taking this one step further, Mehan's gift (already evident in the years she studied with me) is to repeatedly spew forth one bit of rich vocabulary after another — vocabulary of motion, of intricate gesture and posture, of entrances and exits.

The music, also in 16 parts, did its own entrances and exits. While 12 of the sections were excerpts of Handel's "Israel in Egypt," these were interspersed with original music by Ali Jihad Racy and Gamal Goma. They based their material "on archaeological evidence, reconstructing instruments from the period of ancient Egypt, and compos(ing) music using those rhythms," said Mehan and Peterson. The mix worked, offering contemporary variety to augment some of the heroic classical themes.

This reminds me of my earlier reference to my difficulty in differentiating the many sections. Even afterwards, with program in hand, I couldn't match up my review notes (taken during the performance) with all the section titles. One audience member said, "I wanted to be there and hold it all, but I couldn't. I just had to let it go and keep watching other things."

Costumed in an Egyptian-Hebrew mix of rulers' collar plates and slaves' sackcloth (a hybrid I found confusing since roles were not differentiated) they gradually changed into weskits and breechpants. These were visually interesting but seemed unwarranted choreographically. More and more and more is what we got; the lesson of how "less is more" has yet to be learned.

I sense that deep down the choreographer knows this, that she understands the value of simplicity but just isn't there yet. Mehan herself said, "no matter how hard (or) how much we study, we will never know exactly what happened in those ancient times … Whether we look back based on religious belief, scientific research, or artistic inspiration, the important thing is that we are looking back … (at) the history of people," so clearly she gets the profundity of the essential.

I loved the "looking back"; I wanted to see more of the "people," feel their anguish as fully as I felt their glory.

Back when the artistic directors were students, they participated in Vermont-based three-day intensives during which they learned about creating, producing, and performing environmental and site-specific work. Some of these were presented at "Ice on Fire," the annual central Vermont community celebration of deep winter, and some at the "New Dances at the Old Farm" series at Missing Bridge Farm in Worcester. Even then, as undergraduates, their willingness to "hit the road running" was evident. I recall one time in November they created a piece during an unseasonably mild day on the bank of the North Branch of the Winooski only to have to face performing it during a snowstorm the following afternoon – but perform it they did, full out.

They brought this same intense level of commitment to the Ailey stage. The dancing started off so explosively that there was nowhere for it to go; nonetheless, after 70 non-stop minutes, it was as vigorous, grounded and dynamic (and the dancers as "on" and exuberant) as on stroke one. Yet overall, the piece could have benefited from quietings and simpler moments. The consistently dense and complex movement material actually – ironically – got in the way of building an overall choreographic form; lulls and swells of different sections, and ruthless attention to editing, could have helped pace and phrase the work as a whole so it could have peaked to a climax and then found resolution.

Surely, with the kind of attention to detail this company evidences, their work will mature in this way as well as others. They're a young company to watch for!

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