Writing about dance is a funny thing.  Dance is a silent art form, expressing everything through gestures and movements, yet here I am trying to find words to describe it.  For so many dancers and choreographers, what they love about dance is that they don’t have to use words—and often feel they can express more because of that.

On Friday, I went to see Company Wayne McGregor.  McGregor’s movement is solidly contemporary (although he threw in the occasional movement, such as a pirouette, that was so stunningly classical it was jarring in context).  When I go and see ballet, I know the names of all the steps.  My eye is trained, and I can evaluate their execution and assembly.  But as movement becomes less classical, my confidence in being able to assess it diminishes.  I couldn’t name all of the steps McGregor’s dancers did—if indeed the steps have names at all.  Which leaves me in a position to simply react.  Perhaps this is how many people feel when confronted with ballet, and why they find it so daunting.

I was in no doubt of the dancers’ excellence.  The 10 cast members are high-caliber movers, all possessed of impressive strength and flexibility.  (And of choreographic propensity.  The program gave them credit, stating that the piece was choreographed in collaboration with them.)  What I felt was lacking was connection between them.  As someone I know described the piece, “It’s so ‘cool’ that it’s cold.”

My favorite part of the entire 80-minute piece was when the dancers walked onstage carrying chairs.  To the squawks and calls of a rain forest soundscape, each dancer, carrying his or her chair a bit differently, crossed the stage with a determined gait before setting the chair down to form a single line up the side of the stage.  What I responded to was the simplicity.  There wasn’t anything “cool” or extraordinary about that they were doing; they were just walking with chairs.

My least favorite part was when they dropped the set piece down and three of the dancers scampered about beneath it, trying not to be caught in the strobe light.  It felt too menacing.

Called Autobiography, this piece was inspired by McGregor’s DNA.  That’s a bit nerdy, eh?  I hadn’t previously seen any of his work in person, only some film clips of his work for ballet companies (including The Royal Ballet, where he is Resident Choreographer).  Much of what he creates seems to have this cold, cerebral quality, which made me wish all the more I had been able to see his Woolf Works for The Royal Ballet, which is based on Virginia Woolf’s literary output.

I was never able to fully lose myself in the performance.  Even when I was engrossed in the dancing, my mind was elsewhere, thinking of a million different things, including “What do I think of what I am watching right now?  How am I going to write about this?”

507 words.  That’s how many words it’s taken me to try to describe Autobiography.

Company Wayne McGregor:  Autobiography
March 9, 2018, at 7:30 pm at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts