Review: ISHIDA Dance's YOU COULD RELEASE ME Puts Human Relationships on Display

The prevailing theme of ISHIDA Dance's new work You Could Release Me is love, and the many forms that love takes. You Could Release Me is broken up into four separate dance pieces, each exploring a different aspect of how we relate to each other, and while the internal story arcs of some of these pieces are more clear than others, the show as a whole presents a moving and honest reflection on what it takes to be open, intimate, and vulnerable.

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The first piece, "10,000 years I love you," shows us multiple pairs of lovers and would-be lovers meeting, flirting, pulling away, and coming together. Dancers Katie Lake, Nathan Makolandra, and Jordan Pelliteri appear to play multiple characters, though the settings that each pairing find themselve in are not immediately clear. The piece begins with Lake and Pelliteri performing what can only be described as a mating dance, and continues through a number of encounters that range from sultry to comedic. While I found the internal arc of this piece to be one of the more difficult to track, there is an element of joy in the piece that helps to keep the energy up even when the internal narrative falters. Makolandra is particularly compelling, alternating admirably between a swaggering womanizer and a pleading lover. Lake is also amusingly standoffish in the final segment, rebuffing Makolandra's attempts to woo her with some very assured eye rolls.

The second piece, and by far my favorite, was actually not created for You Could Release Me. As explained by Ishida, choreographer Kristian Lever was commissioned to create a new piece for this production, but was prevented from doing so due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and so it was decided to include one of his pre-existing pieces instead. The piece is titled "An Intimate Distance," and it follows two young men as they fight the conflicting urges to pull away from each other and melt into each other. Jackson Haywood and Alejandro Perez lend an intensity and vigor to the piece that brings to life the physicality of Lever's choreography. One can feel the raw magnetism between the two, as if forces greater than themselves are pulling them together while simultaneously pushing them apart. At times one is pulling away, and at times it is the other, but you never lose the feeling that they are aching to be with each other. I found myself on the edge of my seat, rooting for them to be together like I was watching the last five minutes of a Days of Our Lives episode.

The third piece, choreographed by Emilie Leriche, is called "Fletcher," and tells the story of two people circling each other and struggling to connect. The movement in this piece is more child-like than any of the other pieces, with the dancers at various points getting down on all fours, laying down on the floor in a pile, and pacing around a conspicuously placed stool. There is a sense of love that is ill-fitting, of love that leaves us constantly longing for something else. However, I must admit to feeling a level of disconnection during this piece, especially compared to the physical tour-de-force that preceded it. Perhaps that is an appropriate feeling, though, given how (intentionally) disconnected the dancers seem to be from one another (I noticed halfway through the dance that they do not make eye contact at any point).

The fourth and final piece, choreographed by Ishida herself, is titled "changeling." This piece explores the difficulties of falling in love and how loving someone else can make us feel like we are being split in two. Maddie Medina and Emilie Leriche play doppelgangers of one another. As Medina's character falls in love with the character played by Zack Tang, her shadow-self begins to come between the couple. Throughout the piece, Leriche keeps to the edges of the light, simply watching the lovers with a cautious anxiety. However, as she moves further into the center, she begins to push Medina into the shadows, turning the sweet dance she had been doing with Tang into a jerky, disconnected battle of anxieties. The contrast between the fluid and elegant movements of the lovers and the spastic convulsions of Leriche's character provide a strong contrast between the idea of love as easy and affectionate and love as fraught and difficult. Ultimately, however, Medina's heroine chooses to separate from her toxic shadow-self and throw herself into the arms of her lover with abandon, leaving Leriche's character to slip away into the wings. The message we are left with is to run towards love with as much enthusiasm as possible, and try our best to quell the nagging uncertainties that compel us to isolate ourselves.

The music in each piece is strong throughout, ranging from bouncy, recognizable pop songs to classical renditions of well-known ballads to emotionally charged instrumentals. The stage, for the most part, lacks set pieces, leaving the majority of the story to be told through lighting, which lighting designer Hudson Davis arranges beautifully. Davis deserves particular praise for the design of "changeling," which begins with a wide beam of light cutting down the front of the playing space, giving the illusion of a wall of light through which the dancers emerge. The dancers are all lively and committed, working to convey the tone and message of each piece even when the connective tissue leaves something to be desired.

You Could Release Me makes a sincere effort to explore both the joys and the difficulties of connecting with one another. What does it feel like when we want to be with someone but can't? What do our bodies do when we want to tell someone we love them but we are afraid? More importantly, how can we work to open ourselves up to others even when internal and external forces are trying to draw us apart? While the show may not offer groundbreaking commentary on these issues, there is a sensitivity and an honesty to the work that comes through. I will not say that the show is life changing, but it is a pleasant way to spend an evening and offers a chance to at least reflect on our own experiences of love and connection, and what those experiences ask of us.

You Could Release Me runs from Thursday, March 17 to Sunday, March 20 at MATCH (Midtown Arts and Theatre Center Houston). Tickets start at $50 and are available by calling (713) 521-4533 or visiting https://matchouston.org/events/2022/you-could-release-me.

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