Three Times a Charm.

Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company Eisenhower Theater, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Washington, D.C. December 7-8, 2001

"Oh, East is West and West is East, and ever the twain shall merge" is how Dana Tai Soon Burgess might rewrite Kipling's much-quoted poem. He's not alone in doing so. History is full of choreographers who have fused the dance styles of the two. Burgess, though, melds traditions in a manner that's fresh and up-to-date. He uses the latest in body type (long-legged, frontally open), has his own ideas about what is timeless in body placement (torso a trifle flattened, hips cocked, arms elbowing), and he gives his dancers rich embroideries of steps (including batterie) and long swaths of movement.

The parts of Burgess's now-completed "Trilogy" are entertainingly distinct, despite having a family resemblance. Each piece can be performed separately, yet together they have cumulative impact. The project began in 1998: Martha Graham's work with Isamu Noguchi inspired Burgess to invite sculptor John Dreyfuss to collaborate. The men's premise that statuary and dancers should interact to shape movement has persisted from the start, although some of the choreography changed over the years. Movement is foremost, not only as ingredient but also as subject, because all three dances are about moving from an origin to a goal.

The opener, Helix, is a dance of development, of evolution. There is an inevitability about its progression from fetus to cosmos. The piece had begun life as a duet for male dancer and giant mobile--a cupped form resembling a white seashell or a plaster cast of an ear or the model of a nebula. With only one human presence, that first version had a loneliness which resonated as the mortal woke from embryonic sleep and grew to heroic stature. The current version still starts with only the male figure (Burgess), but at one point when he disappears behind the sculpture, a female (Sarah Craft) emerges on the other side. This complicates matters. Is Burgess alluding to Tiresias, the mythological Greek whose sexual transformation enabled him to experience love as both man and woman? It seems so for a time, but then the male reappears to join the female. The relationship they forge could be that of help-mates who set out to partake of knowledge--a guiltless Adam and Eve. It is clear that the sculpture shapes the contours of the space in which the humans move and they, by rotating the object, influence its appearance. Both versions of Helix are worth keeping for choreography that expands and deepens.

Mandala is new, except that its snoutlike, fin-shaped, phallic Dreyfuss statue had been used for a dance that did not become part of "Trilogy." The statue rises to tower over tour women (Suzanne Bryant, Jennifer Rain Ferguson, Miyako Nitadori, Tati Valle Riestra). Wearing white (diaphanous, elegant versions of burqas over halters and harem pants), they delivered bravura dancing. The effect was that of a ballet blanc, yet the performers sometimes seemed to be moved by anger and experienced pain. Early on, all the women shed their burqas. At the climax, one woman went on to drop her harem garb, climb the seemingly unassailable statue and, near the top, sink into herself to assume a devotional posture. Whether Mandala is a dance of defiance or submission is debatable, but undeniable is its brilliance and passion.

Silk Roads, also new, is a journey, a pilgrimage. Dreyfuss's sculpture--plumb weight, bulb, or breast--hangs suspended and still over seven dancers (two of them men, though that's not so important) who group themselves. Together, they seek direction, a path, and seem for a while to find their way, but they stray and start over. All the time one waited for the sculpture--acorn, cocoon, or bomb--to burst or drop. When it did--but that would give the ending away. Suffice it to say that there is sadness along this road.

Burgess and Dreyfuss, the principal collaborators for "Trilogy," make dance and statuary function together most successfully in Helix, because its sculpture reaches out beyond itself to shape the entire stage space. Fine support came from other members of the team--composer Christopher Nickels and lighting artist Jennifer Tipton for Helix, and composer Jon Jang and lighting artist Helena Kuukka for Mandala and Silk Roads. Han Feng's costumes in all three pieces suited the bodies, movement, and moods.