Nova Linea Dance Company Respects Despair in ‘Some Wounds Never Heal’

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Photo by Andrea Cavaliere @andreacmyk

Nova Linea Contemporary Dance's ‘Some Wounds Never Heal’

Nova Linea Contemporary Dance's ‘Some Wounds Never Heal’

The Marcus Performing Arts Center’s Wilson Theater was bursting with excitement last Friday for the premiere of Some Wounds Never Heal, Nova Linea Dance Company’s new evening-length work. The large audience included lots of young dancers from area dance schools, together with their teachers, family and friends, eager to see professional dancers who’d worked with these youngsters as teachers or guest artists perform an original show in a first-class Downtown theater.

Jared Baker, Nova Linea’s founding artistic director and the show’s choreographer, thanked the schools in attendance in his welcome speech. He told us he’d decided not to close the evening with a talk-back, as is usual for Nova Linea performances. He wanted us to have our own thoughts about the work, uncluttered by his. He did confirm what preshow publicity had emphasized: that this is a dance about the kind of loss that leaves you unable to move forward—motionless, so to speak—and the people that try to help you travel through your grieving process.

Some Wounds Never Heal is unusual in this sense: it’s a full-length dance performance that explores an overwhelming state of being rather than telling a story. In an interview last year, Baker told me that his aim for his contemporary dance company is “to push boundaries, but in way that’s accessible and understandable.” This show was accessible enough to warrant screams of joy from the youngsters at the curtain call, and clear-yet-complex enough to constantly engage this 76-year old’s interpretive faculties.

Two Chapters, Both Superb

The performances were all superb, most impressively that of Senior Company Artist Gracie Plath in the role of the grief-stricken human, the constant center of this 90-minute work. 

The show unfolded in two “Chapters,” separated by intermission. One intriguing touch was that Baker had the cast remain fully lighted onstage and holding their final position well into the intermission. Eventually, one by one, the dancers slowly left the stage, but not before the fully lighted audience was up and chatting, or on their phones, or walking into the lobby. 

The image that the dancers clung to was of Plath curled on the floor in despair, eyes directed at ours, while the community of nine dancers pressed in around her, offering comfort. There was suspense in that image: would she accept comfort? Would it be enough to ease her pain? But on a meta level, with the intermission fully underway, the performers’ reluctance to leave also suggested that they couldn’t bring themselves to break a pose so full of empathy and hope.

Feelings, Interactions

The effort by individuals and groups to rescue a colleague or friend from the depths of despair describes the action of Some Wounds Never Heal. I wanted them to succeed, and at times their failure was wearing.  But I was held fast by the variety of movements Baker and the dancers found to represent these feelings and interactions, and by the truths they managed to convey. And all of it was set to stirring music gathered from a range of pop and new music artists.

Plath’s solos had emotional range. Barefoot in a colorless, ankle-length gown slit up the sides, she’d attack the sometimes ballet-influenced contemporary choreography, and then quickly slow down as if her energy evaporated. There was a lot of floor work. She’d raise a fist, lurch, fall, contract muscles, like you might do alone in your home to some passionate orchestral music you loved if—in a state of fury and grief—you let yourself go, making whatever movements emerged. Plath would fill the stage with passionate dancing, then lay center-stage in a spotlight and stare with dead eyes, hope-abandoned.

None of her fellow artists or friends, all danced by the same cast but distinguished by costume changes, wanted to see her in that state. Late in “Chapter Two” it seemed we might be headed for the hopeful, if not happy, ending customary in a tale of this sort. But some wounds never heal indeed. I’m grateful that the artists gave despair it’s due.

Plath’s character was partnered, lifted acrobatically, cuddled, or brought into beautiful unison dancing. A stop was put to some tender ministrations from another woman—love lost, perhaps. Others stripped Plath to her underclothing, washed her, soothed her with water to her forehead, and dressed her in a gown that matched what they were wearing. She recovered, but no; she fell back. She’d push them away; then quickly pull them back. They’d have her dancing high in the air, but by the end of the sequence she’d be flat on the floor on her stomach. 

So everyone took that position. In staccato rhythm, they’d lift some body part, strain and collapse again. Some helped others until all but Plath has walked away. She tries and falls, tries and falls. Lights out.