The true test of a new dance company is not its first season, but its second. Visceral Dance Chicago came out of the gates running last year, leaving audience members with high expectations for the future. Indeed, VDC’s season two announcement left us in awe of things to come. Three new works, including the commission of Ohad Naharin’s Duet Mabul, would add to VDC’s increasingly beefy repertoire. For the most part, VDC would make good on its promises for an exciting season opener Friday night at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, particularly in the concert’s bookends. Banning Bouldin’s quirky Souvenir and Harrison McEldowney’s adorable Cool Love HD demonstrated that VDC actually has a personality. To date, everything has been dark and slate and dramatic angst, and these two lighter works that opened and closed the program presented a refreshing respite from VDC’s M.O. for the super serious.
Souvenir opens with a pile of dancers (including some new additions to last season’s roster) in a Pilobolus-esque migration across the stage. Groups form into tableaus hinting at child’s play. Though barely lit, the weird scenes (perhaps intentionally) distract eyes away from a lovely duet happening downstage. The dancers mold and bend each other like Play Doh and suddenly find themselves in a straight line right to left, brightly lit. Eyes open wide, and a series of playful gestures set to French circus music ensues. The unfolding “ode to mime” is Souvenir’s pearl, and could have gone on for 20 minutes more sans ennui. It’s a moment that won’t soon be forgotten, and shows VDC’s affinity for characterization and facial expression, with no hint of cliché. Though Souvenir is missing a climax, and could have, perhaps, benefitted from brighter costumes to illuminate the dancers’ gestures, it leaves a mischievous smirk that resonates well past its fade to black… I dare say, like a souvenir.
In the evening’s standout performance, Caitlin Cucchiara and Karl Watson rose to the challenge of Ohad Narharin’s four minute long Duet Mabul, nestled between two big company pieces in the latter half of the program. With all details and nuances attended to, Duet Mabul’s beauty is in its simplicity, which unfortunately can’t be said for the evening as a whole.
Harrison McEldowney’s Cool Love HD was a joyful crowd pleaser that almost wasn’t, after a video malfunction forced a “re-do.” Nick Pupillo’s Impetere was not the same tightly rehearsed power play it was in 2013. A once passionate and inspired cast appeared at times to be going through the motions. The whole evening felt a bit like a crisp new shirt that’s gone through one washing: it’s a little looser and a little softer, but the novelty of having a new shirt is gone. Despite an impressively curated evening, an uncharacteristically sloppy VDC Friday night begs the question: Are they trying to do too much, too soon?
Time will tell where Visceral will lie within the greater dance community. For now, it remains to be seen if they can rise to the very high bar they have set for themselves.
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