BODYVOX LIGHTS UP THE SKY.

BODYVOX
LINCOLN PERFORMANCE HALL
PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY
PORTLAND, OREGON
JUNE 8-11, 15-18, 2000

Oregon's literary artists have a strong sense of place and an acute sensitivity to the weather. The same can be said for some of its dancers, specifically native son Jamey Hampton and Connecticut-born Ashley Roland, founders of BodyVox and creators, with filmmaker Mitchell Rose and visual artist and writer Tad Savinar, of "a thousand little cities," a handsomely crafted, frequently funny, impeccably danced evening-length work.

Weather provides the impetus for dance in three places. Maelstrom opens the show with Roland, bathed in ominous purply light, a human puppet on a rope suspended from a gauzy cyclone created by Lion King designer Michael Curry. Feet off the ground much of the time, her body turning against the cyclone's whirl, Roland made light work of heavy weather. As John Adams's music built, she was less and less in control, and by the time the rest of the company surged onto the stage you knew this was a heavy, merciless wind calling the shots.

A travelogue of snapshots of company dancers Leslie Braverman, Eric Skinner, Robert Guitron, Jennifer Hileman, Daniel Kirk, Eric Oglesbee, Roland and Hampton--who continues to be a remarkably fluid mover--follows, setting up the environment in which these artists work.

Distant Weather evokes a contrasting melancholy mood, equally effective as the dancers roll slowly on the floor, strike poses and lift one another against a background of projections of Oregon's quietly gloomy skies and waters. If humankind is at the mercy of the weather, then technology, fear of the other and the whims of our fellows also trap us.

One Wonders creates a dark, nasty ambience as the dancers, clad in what look like big coats, move furtively in an ominous row while Savinar declaims on tape, "What's he doing in there?" This bit rapidly segues into Schlumps, a hilarious romp in which the dancers, holding little model houses, face the audience before scampering cheerfully off stage. They return looking like hunchbacks, until children--gymnasts all--slide from underneath the coats to join the dancers in some very athletic movement. A wedding scene in which the guests keep the bride and groom apart is sidesplittingly funny and magnificently danced; a museum shtick pokes fun at the pomposity of art critics.

Not everything works. Savinar's The Big Plink has little dancing and a pretentious script that is unoriginal--it makes fun of the big bang theory--and anti-intellectual, but does have the words "a thousand little cities."

Luckily, Deere John, brilliantly conceived by Roland, follows. Hampton, on film, dances an eloquent, elegiac farewell to a giant earthmover to Saint-Saens's score for Fokine's Dying Swan.