01 November 2010
BEIRUT: “Keep it simple, stupid,” the mantra of politicians and software developers, was originally coined by aeronautical engineer Kelly Johnson. Responsible for the military wing of the Lockheed Corporation, Johnson wanted aircraft to be swiftly and easily maintained in the field.
Danish dancer and choreographer Jens Bjerregaard appeared to be channeling a similar principle Friday night with “Simple Moves,” performed at Hamra’s Babel Theater.
“[T]he simple-minded, the naïve, is elegant in itself,” stated promotional material, going on to make the inscrutable claim that “the abstract has its own logic, even when it cannot be explained or put into words.”
“Simple Moves” was a rare solo appearance from Danish dancer and choreographer Bjerregaard, founder of the acclaimed Mancopy company that has performed at Beirut’s annual International Platform of Dance. Bjerregaard is back in town for a pedagogical stint at the Takween Beirut Contemporary Dance School, a professional training program run by the Maqamat dance company.
The one-hour show made use of a sparing set of ingredients: Bjerregaard’s body, some minimal stage lighting and a little back projection.
With the house lights still up, Bjerregaard strolled onstage and began to regale the audience with an anecdote in Danish. Those without a grasp of the lingo were left to marvel at the dancer’s chiseled cheekbones.
Throughout his reasonably lengthy soliloquy, Bjerregaard moved slowly backward, occasionally emitting a strangulated gasp. Finally, in a dramatic change of register, he crashed to the floor, the house lights dropped and a red spotlight picked out the dancer’s body.
After lumbering stegosaurus-like to a soundtrack of snorts and groans, Bjerregaard became a biped once more, as guitars and marimba chimed in with a vaguely tropical flavor.
Staggering to his feet and pulling at his clothes, bleary Bjerregaard launched into impressive sequences of street-inflected moves that were repeated over and over with seemingly effortless precision. Occasionally he would pause his prancing to throw an intense glance at the audience, as though to say, “I’m just a human like you.”
Although undoubtedly a physical feat, this first segment of the evening, lasting around 15 minutes, was perhaps an instance of too much simplicity. Choreographed by Cuban dancer Maura Morales, the well-oiled sequences of leaps, rolls and tumbles left the audience without much to latch on to.
Things perked up with the second part of the evening, a 30-minute performance with the guttural title “Ugennemtrængelig” (Impermeable). Choreographed by Bjerregaard himself, this segment used a little technical trickery to compelling effect.
While Bjerregaard warmed up with a series of yoga-style stretches, a piercing dot of light hovered across his body like the laser sight of a firearm. As he settled down into the lotus position, his legs folded over one another like Buddha, the dot slowly widened across his chest until Bjerregaard was bathed in a glow that flung his shadow against an upstage screen.
Legs still improbably folded, Bjerregaard rolled and writhed, throwing unrecognizable silhouettes onto the screen. On returning to his original seated position, a black dot pierced Bjerregaard’s chest. Growing outward into a fizzing, pixilated black hole, the dark patch suddenly metamorphosed into the shadow of a figure of very similar dimensions to his own.
Like the id and its ego, Bjerregaard’s shadow interacted with its on-screen doppelganger in a two-dimensional pas de deux. After several minutes, a third shadow sidled into the picture. With a giant umbrella, the interloper blotted out the light.
At later moments Bjerregaard performed against glistening, translucent patches like frost on glass. Elegant plumes of smoke were also projected onto the screen, the kind of thick and lustrous effusion that escapes a femme fatale’s lips.
Designed by video artist Naoko Tanaka, these visual effects introduced an intriguing duality into Bjerregaard’s performance. His yoga-influenced physical movements, characterized by large, circular motions of the limbs, looked austerely formal and abstract.
When projected onto the screen, however, it was hard not to impose some kind of narrative onto Bjerregaard’s movements. The interaction of his shadow with Tanaka’s backdrops was reminiscent of the Weimar-era silhouette cinema of Lotte Reiniger, or the more recent efforts of French animator Michel Ocelot.
Bjerregaard pulled off his T-shirt and then, after opening the waistband of his trousers and peering in for several moments, he pulled these off as well. Sporting only a pair of red Y-fronts, Bjerregaard enacted a series of expansive, dramatic sequences, like something photographed by Eadweard Muybridge.
The screen changed colors as Bjerregaard windmilled back and forth. Soon his shadow-companions returned, wielding umbrellas and flitting skittishly on and off screen. These ghostly performers, however, didn’t turn up for the curtain call – Bjerregaard received an enthusiastic round of applause alone.
Copyright The Daily Star 2010.
