Wally Cardona Quartet.

WALLY CARDONA QUARTET DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP, NY, NY JANUARY 10-15, 2005

Wally Cardona worked reductively in a new piece titled Him, There, Them, removing production elements in each of three sections--a scenic decrescendo. "Him" literally began with a bang as nine snare drummers unleashed a fusillade of percussion. Cardona, dancing solo, tip-toed on the tops of seven white cubes like a water bug on a pond, meticulously measuring the effect of each weight shift, his body sometimes forming a bridge or a slightly hazardous-seeming fulcrum. He performed with an intense curiosity, like an inquisitive child--lining up the cubes with his feet or plowing through the lush Astroturf while lying on his back, hands wiggling in the air. The drumming summoned complex emotional connections: a marching band, a military procession, perhaps a firing squad, even a magician performing the ta-da! moment of a trick.

"There," the second part, shifted from an austere, fractious, alien tone to a twisted take on romanticism, underscored by live Brahms piano music. Cardona was joined by Matthew Winheld, with Joanna Kotze and Kathryn Sanders, who, bent at the waist, scrubbed the turf with the backs of their curled hands and swung their legs like big pendulums. Winheld has internalized Cardona's peculiar balky and combustible style so well that, in an extended solo, he seemed completely detached from the bold, sometimes violent movement that he performed flawlessly. Romanticism entered the picture when the dancers lay on the grass in lazy poses, perhaps watching the clouds go by. Then their carefully placed limbs collapsed, sending them rolling into splayed contortions. The cumulative effect was like watching a time-lapse film of an afternoon in Central Park, moving between pastoral bliss and upheaval.

"Them" dispensed with the turf, leaving two white marley runners that curved upward. Cardona and Sanders at first moved separately, alternating between sensual, introverted fumbling and frenzied bopping, fists pumping overhead. The looping tape of a musical vamp conveyed a measure of futility, and without the evocative props, the dancing felt aimless. However, we received dollops of satisfaction when their movements aligned and they interacted, reasserting a human connection.