Kelvin Wailey: tumbleweeds but not because there's smushiness and unpredictability that implies
Kelvin Wailey, thank you for making a kaleidoscope with bodies, for examining relationships between women, for playing, for being interested in non-conventional spaces and for all the soft smiles.
I am a friend of Leila, Laura, and Emma (the women that make up this collaboration). So, know that I am biased. I have also engaged in giving and receiving feedback from these three in that past so a dialogue of honest feedback is not new to us.
Kelvin Wailey is but a bud in it's stage of life in the Twin Cities dance scene. Of their shows I've seen, there exists a sense of youth and play. And so I ask myself, "Is it the age and playfulness of these three women that creates this levity?" Ah, I think I found the word I mean: curious. These creators are curious and accepting. I also think the lightness comes from all the love that connects these women. I can imagine how creating with my best friends and performing for an audience stacked with supportive faces would cause a little smile in my eyes and at the corner of my mouth while performing.
I have seen Kelvin Wailey perform with musicians in an unfinished basement, in a hallway, at a distillery, in a gallery space and on a stoop in front of a ivy covered house. Each has had its own taste but all pulled from the same ingredients. At times the bodies connect and unravel and pause... at times the bodies will find themselves floating into unison. The vocabulary is dense while still invoking a sense of a time and place for each thing happening. There are moments that cut through the unfolding: a peace sign reaching under the knee, the two fingers first piercing then flexing as if to claw or air quote.
Thoughts that ramble when I've seen Kelvin Wailey perform:
Can I tell who made what? They've practiced this score OR they know each other's bodies and tendencies well enough to be this intuitive. What would this feel/look like on a stage? This is dance that has been planted and not artificially produced.
The latest performance, which included 2/3 of Kelvin Wailey, started in a side yard of a house. An artistic space, the house was the location for multiple other performers that evening. There was food out (nourishment is also usually present at their performances), people were talking in little groups on the grass.
Tense switch. Imagine this: Leila comes bounding around the corner in her hiking boots and yellow dress circling the yard and weaving as if to herd us to the front of the house. She continues to loop around, lassoing us together.
Then starts a muted ruckus on the stoop. The steps become like giant piano keys to play on, neither performer shies away from confidently and tenderly griping the concrete with hands and sides of torsos. Their bodies fully embrace the rough and uneven surface. Leila slides down the banister and lands in a sploosh of green plant. The spilling of improv lends way to some cheeky unison. The two appear to be lounging. At one point Leila hides behind a door as Emma expands the space at the base of the stairs. There's humor and kindness and motion that is surprisingly vigorous for how casual it all seems.
It ends with the dancers tumbleweeding up the stairs toward the cavern of the open doors. Only "tumbleweed" is a poor word choice because it only describes their continuous rolling. It doesn't accurately depict how really they were like weighted moss melting and smushing upstream.
