Review: Trainor Dance's Fifth Anniversary Season at Ailey

Trainor Dance's fifth anniversary season opened with multi-colored ghosts descending from the sky- silk skirts that featured as heavily as the dancers themselves in this excerpt of Faux Pas. The fabric was manipulated into a variety of shapes and garments, which has led many to draw comparisons with Martha Graham's Lamentation, but a mild similarity in costuming is where the comparison should probably end.

Unlike Lamentation in which the performer often seems captive in the garment as a storyteller embodying grief, struggle, torture, denial, comfort-seeking, solitude, etc. the myriad of dancers in Faux Pas seemed to perform solely to revel in the freedom of movement -sometimes grounded and abstract, sometimes airborne and ballet-esque- within a whirlwind of dancer bodies as diverse as the rainbow of hues.

The partner work was one of my favorite recurring elements of the night and this was exalted in the premiere of Dear Friends, a duet featuring Ms. Trainor herself, choreographed by guest artist Takehiro Ueyama. Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega may seem like an odd musical choice at first for a piece dedicated to members of the Mexican art community who penned a letter to the world decrying unbridled violence -state and otherwise- and neo-liberal interests in Mexico where artist-activists are often targets. As the soundtrack morphs into a deranged guitar loop stem of Tom's Diner, and the choreography and lighting becomes more threatening and avant-garde, we see violence in the vicious cycles and strained relationship of the couple on stage which might serve as a microcosm for the frustration felt by Ueyama's actual or figurative peers in Mexico. One has to appreciate Ms. Trainor's athleticism and the unique shapes created by Ueyama's choreography, which helped the piece stand out from others in the show.

Sandpainting felt like a dreamscape oscillating back and forth between ethereal softness and percussive, linear movement but the highlight of the night (no pun intended) was the premiere of (IN)VISIBLE (pun intended) which experimented with various forms of lighting -stage, strobes, lamps- reflective surfaces and darkness. Choreographed to a cacophonous soundtrack of beeps, drills and alarms the dancers moved effortlessly in sculptural, white costumes which resembled light frozen in time.

Throughout the dance performers laid out two-dimensional, reflective strings which served as barriers to be danced on, around and within -barriers that didn't seem to have any particular reason to be except to be- which felt like a small microcosm of the diverse body of Ms. Trainor's work. However, (IN)VISIBLE on a whole seemed purposeful in its use of sound and lighting to produce a visceral effect on the physical senses. Of all the works featured that night of Ms. Trainor's design, (IN)VISIBLE felt like the most feasible candidate on which to project the story of our own inner workings right up until the lights went down on a figure, barely visible, still dancing in the dark.

Photo Credit: Paul B. Goode

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