Review: JUST SO at the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre

Just So, at the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre, is so bewildering and bright it's hard to write about. Calling it a modern dance show is about as much as I am comfortable saying with authority; everything beyond that is conjecture.

Located in the basement of the theatre, where, in the winter, the cloakroom is filled with fine furs and bustling old ladies, Just So is a piece clearly designed especially for the space; the dancers make use of the stairs leading down to the basement, of the empty cloakroom racks, of the mirrors that guests usually use to check their hair after they've taken off their hats. It is a small, dark, confined area, and in any given moment the dancers may be inches away from hitting the ceiling or grazing a member of the audience.

We sit in a row against the wall; there aren't many of us, only a few more spectators than dancers, and, at times, like when a dancer steps cautiously close to us, looks at us with genuine curiosity, we feel like we are the display, and they are something else. What are they? The dancers twirl and fall, caress each other, spin on their heads. If there is an encyclopedia of dance, Just So can be described using pages from every volume, drawing from every obscure chapter.

Sometimes the dancers dance together, tangle their bodies in one another, moving the way only two people can together, and sometimes they dance alone; and sometimes, it's impossible to tell if they inhabit the same space intentionally or accidentally, if they are a parade, a queue, a crowd, or a company. A few spoken phrases are repeated throughout the show: a reference to a bus with no doors and no windows, a request, made to the audience, to step on to a wheel. The language conjures a sense of being trapped and moving at the same time, of desperation and momentum.

Like many modern dance shows, Just So demands interpretation but punishes explanation.