Nonetheless, I wasknocked breathless by The Unraveling,choreographed by Simon Andreas Eichinger and Dani Kuepper, and superbly lightedby Jan Kellogg. It alone is worth the price of admission to this wittilyorchestrated collection of dances inspired by film genres. Horrifying as agreat H.P. Lovecraft tale of men possessed by unnamable monsters (which isprecisely what appears to be happening), it was danced and acted perfectly byEichinger under Kuepper's guidance.
It was followed byanother highlight, Kuepper's When the DogBites,set to excerpts from The Sound of Music. The choreographytakes a shocking but organic turn at the end that had most of the audience,myself included, screaming with laughter. I won't reveal the ending, but it'snot only true to the subject (“Climb Every Mountain,” indeed), but also to theconception of the program as an assemblage of powerful, sometimes insidiousimages of the sort that shape us.
All the dancers weredelightfully goofy and Melissa Anderson was especially hilarious. Her BusbyBerkeley quotation, Dames, opens theshow, a smart idea for a company consisting almost entirely of women. (Thealways-appealing Steven Moses is the only male, along with guest Eichinger.) Iwanted the women to move in perfect sync, as in the source material. But slightgaps in uniformity were redeemed by the conceptual brilliance of its falseendings: The girls are brought back repeatedly for moreglorification/commodification.
Much else is good,including Liz Hildebrandt's pas de trois.The program's choreography is weakest when it simply doesn't take its goodideas far enough.
