BWW Reviews: Doug Varone and Dancers Further the Art

There's nothing like a little "controlled chaos" to spice up a Saturday night in Lewiston, Maine.
Those are the words choreographer Doug Varone has used to describe his new piece "ReComposed," the highlight of a program of three of his works offered in two performances over a steamy July weekend at the Bates Dance Festival.
Varone's been a semi-regular at the Festival dating back to 1992. There's no sign of any flagging in his creative or physical energy as he not only gave his eight-member company a workout but also took the stage for an intense solo piece.
The new group piece is inspired by pastel drawings by Joan Mitchell that Varone found related to his own approach to "line, form and color." He sought to use that affinity "as a jumping off point" for a fast-paced piece set to a dense, post-modern orchestral composition by Michael Gordon.
On a special floor, put down just moments before the performance, dancers created an interesting approximation of Mitchell's work. The action in her drawings is there to be experienced.
In tight costumes by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung, each marked by a broad line of color, the suggestive expressionism of the artist's markings are set and reset in an overflow of gestures, leaps and postures. Enlivening a white backdrop with various hues provided by Robert Wierzel's lighting design, the dancers inhabit what Varone calls Mitchell's "gravity-less landscapes."
The movement is mostly just this side of frenetic and the music approaches clamor before a couple of quieter passages allow for some lovely duet work, one under blue lights, another featuring a gentle synchronization.
"ReComposed" makes one want to (re)visit Mitchell's work, just as it makes one appreciate Varone's inspired art anew.
"The Fabulist" had the choreographer alone at center stage in a layered costume and under webs of side and overhead lighting, designed by Ben Stanton.
Haunting vocal music by David Lang seem to situate Varone in a state of distress as he gestured and twisted, perhaps caught between a pursuit of escape and an acceptance of fate. Varone's embodiment of Lang's paradoxical lyrics proved engaging.
The evening began with "Possession," an early Varone work set to music by Philip Glass.
Reflecting the composer's signature pulsing rhythms and quick-dissolving flourishes, the dancers paired-off for dramatic encounters that had them seemingly in and out of control of their identities. Balletic passages for two or more dancers highlighted the action, where grace and a sort of confounding unease intermingled in a performance characterized by push and pull, along with striking tableaux of draped bodies.
Varone and company continue to find ways to create at the highest level.

Photo by Grant Halverson

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