North of Your Foot
Choreographed by Laurie Van Weiren
with Pramila Vasudevan, Julia Bither, Lauren Coleman, Anna Marie Shogren, Alys Ayumi Ogura, Corrinne Caouette, and Timothy Glenn
Visual Exibition by Alyssa Baguss
Location: Bethel University
North of Your Foot
Walking through the dark and damp college campus felt both seasonal and familiar. It took on a haunted house feel; the journey built a youthful kind of excitement. We entered the rec center, only able to judge the depth of the darkness by a light illuminating a swath of the far wall. Led along the track, I sensed bodies moving beyond a net separating the track from the courts. The performance was connected to the visual exhibition in the gallery where the audience first gathered. The pieces reminded me of a combination of graphs, maps, and landscapes. The space was crowded and I admit I only briefly glimpsed Alyssa's work but I noted themes of nature, scale, and plotting. Having seen Alyssa Baguss’ pieces prior to entering the deep darkness, I was reminded of the potential of nothing and the title of her show “Everything from Nowhere”.
The audience members rummaged to find a seat. Laurie appeared lit from underneath like she was about to tell a ghost story by the campfire and begun asking frantically if we found the place ok. It was both welcoming and comical. The netting around and within the space was reminiscent of Alyssa’s work, points on a grid that wove an organized fabric. Both concealing and revealing depending on whether you focus on or through it.
The space echoed with the sound of crickets or loons and the occasional drumbeat. Solos began far “stage” right in the half light. Words I gathered from the movement: lunge, flexibility of sneakers, tripping and dancing out of it, bones falling down plinko, fingers wearing big rings, swishy pants. The movers spread and stretched the space further from the audience. I noticed themes of scale and proximity. How small we are in nature, how that drives something in us. How large the call of the loon can be, how it carries memories and something endearingly human.
A solo of Anna Marie Shogren sticks in my head. It seemed like every bit was written down and that she was checking each movement off an impossibly complicated list. I recall a full bodied and repetitious head roll that broke smoothly into a single undulation like a crane shaking off water after emerging with a fish. Then the dancers gathered into a synchronized jogging pack and flocked around to the opposite end of the gymnasium. Eventually all we could see were a few pairs of moving feet as a divider was lowered into the center of the courts; the air echoed with the sound of rain.
A muted chaos ensued as the audience passed through a small gap between divider and net to the other side. I was only frustrated because I wanted to see what was concealed. And lo and behold on the other side was a partially blown up hot air balloon. The child in me cried in delight and I spoke to my friend, “I hope we get to go inside!” I wasn’t disappointed. We stood inside the colorful bubble looking out the mouth where we entered. Dancers blazed past the entrance, I got the feeling that people's attention was split between the interior of the balloon and the figures rushing past the opening, yet nothing was truly missed. Again I was thinking about the scale and wonder of this world.
We were led out of the wind-filled mass only to look back at the balloon deflating. I was reminded of a setting sun. Laurie purposefully circled and pressed the balloon down. A bell chimed from I don’t know where and seemed to signal a laying to rest. The light from the far wall met my eyes suddenly as the billowy fabric sunk lower. The mostly deflated balloon made a new landscape to explore, the scale shifted so the dancers were giants compared to the mountains around them. In the dim light I made out one figure folding limbs in and around the puff left in the fabric. Laurie was circling, coaxing more air into the landscape. A dream world was created. I was reminded of playing with parachutes in elementary school gym class.
Eventually the dunes rested and the dancers pulled the balloon through the parting audience. A musician sang the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”. The dancers stood still and evenly spaced around the limp fabric. Campfire songs, make believe over.
"Wanderlust is the strong or irresistible impulse to travel and explore. It is often driven by the desire to escape and leave behind the familiar to experience the unknown world." - Alyssa Baguss
