The Better Half

Oh, Laypeople; is there any hope? Will we ever understand what is happening on stage? It is often a tricky task for an outsider to be confronted with the weird world of dance, especially, when the main reason for willingly exposing oneself to this confrontation is love. Alicia fell in love with a contemporary dance choreographer, and down the rabbit hole, where she found a disabled bug and a pecking chicken. Confused? Yes.

Contemporary dancer and choreographer, Kelly Bartnik, who resides in New York and I, a native Londoner, met during an evening out with friends in London. When she told me she was a professional dancer, I felt was able to hold my own in a conversation about dance - after all, have we not all, at one time or another, been moving rhythmically to music? Our initial encounter led to the development of a beautiful and intense online relationship and to the eventual booking of a flight ticket to New York. Our whirlwind of two weeks spent together in the big Apple was amazing, to say the least. However, it became clear that in fact I know nothing about contemporary dance. Or at least, I know the laywoman’s version. So I take it upon myself (wish me luck) to enlighten you all with a peek into the mind of a novice’s understanding of contemporary dance, in the thrall of her contemporary romance.

Before embarking on my trip to New York, it was imperative that I pre-armoured myself with dance knowledge, so I attended an evening of dance performances at the Robin Howard Dance Theatre. The performances were, to say the least, visually perplexing. There were certain movements that seemed recognisable in form and structure. A particular movement, one which I have named the ‘pecking chicken’, seemed to be a reoccurring theme among the choreographed pieces. The ‘pecking chicken’ entails a person walking around the stage, pushing their head out just like that of a pecking chicken. There was another movement, where the performer looked awkward in stance, almost crippled, which I have named the ‘disabled bug’. It is executed either by lying on your back with all limbs uncomfortably jolting in the air (a popular position), by standing still and moving the arms around, or by shuffling from side to side as if having an attack of some sort. So, I have the movements down pat, now what of the nature of Kelly’s work?

While in New York, Kelly invited me to watch a rehearsal of a piece that she and her dance partner Catherine had been working on. I arrived ten minutes late to the dance studio, after getting lost on the ‘easy’ grid roads of Brooklyn. Catherine had also invited one of her professional dancer friends to watch alongside. The piece consisted of Kelly and Catherine, both dressed in oversized and masculine Blazers, interacting together in what appeared to be a spaghetti western setting. We watched as the two characters switched between being juxtaposed and conflicting in intent, to suddenly working in harmony together. They performed to an imaginary audience, as if they were on a stage; a performance within a performance so to speak. Confliction occurred when Kelly seemed to allow the fame and glory to take over her, whilst Catherine had to consistently reel her back into focus for the imaginary ‘show’ by using serious hand gestures from eye to eye. All the way through I sensed that humour and playfulness were at the forefront of the dance piece.

When the piece ended, Catherine asked both her friend and I to give our opinions; Shit! I insisted her friend go first as I was sure she would know the right things to say. She did. In fact, I listened as the woman went off on the most incomprehensible dance tangent I have ever heard. Of course both Kelly and Catherine nodded in agreement at various intervals, while I looked as though I had just been transported to a Russian book group. When Catherine finally asked me what I had thought of the piece, I simply replied: “yeah, all of that”. But I also explained that I had picked up on a pseudo-performance, Kelly’s character being the occasionally disobedient one and the notion of the piece being spaghetti western themed. This brought Catherine great joy as the themes I had mentioned were indeed there. It made me realise that even as a laywoman - with no experience in the contemporary dance world - I could pick up on such key themes. Kelly and Catherine explained before the performance, that they did not want to tell us the title of the piece until after performing it. It turned out the title of the piece was called ‘Business Like Show Business’.

There is hope for us yet, oh laypeople. We may not know what in the world is going on, but we can still interpret dance pieces in (our own) creative and imaginative ways. Ways that are often what chorographers would love the audience to see. If only I had the same luck in interpreting where on earth my love affair will go?