I arrived early to the museum, and I watched the people slowly drift in, until all at once the chairs were filled and people were standing around the edges of the room. From the front of UMMA’s apse, it looked like any other performance, yet the back of the room resembled a concert pit; people standing, craning to catch a glimpse of what’s going on, resigning themselves to peering between heads. The performance, Image in Motion, attracted a diverse audience; there were groups of students to parents to faculty. The dances were choreographed by students themselves. As they were inspired by UMMA’s collection Europe on Paper, which consists heavily of line drawings (which were described as very graphic by the museum guide), I was interested to see how the dancers would interpret the art. I chatted with the girl sitting next to me as we waited for the performance to begin, and she expressed her worries that she would not understand what was going on in the dances, having not seen the art. Once the show began, though, it became evident that – had we not known the source of inspiration – it could’ve assumed this was another “dance for dance’s sake” show. While the dancers themselves likely saw the ties between movement and art, in my eyes they were two separate things.
I came to the unfortunate realization that not everything I love, when combined, becomes better. For me, art and dance seem to exist in two separate hemispheres; both forms of art, yet there is not a direct correlation. Separate, though, I loved both. I commend anyone who is willing to put their art and talent up for display, to make themselves vulnerable to an audience. The first couple of dances were costumed in nude colors, embodying the Greek statues situated behind them in the space. The dancers themselves, though embodying a completely different collection of art, came to embody the statuary, giving the solitary figures breath, movement, and life. Many dancers chose to highlight the color red, pulling the inspiration from the prints. I enjoyed that, while the focus of the performance was dance, they did not shy away from involving the audience’s other senses. Some dancers spoke during the dance, or used breathing as a form of accompaniment in itself; one performance studied the interplay between a solo French horn player and a dancer, this specific piece causing me to question which performer was inspired by which? Before this last piece began, the audience was asked to stand and rearrange themselves in the back of the apse, creating a circle around the room. I loved this; I felt as though I was in the piece itself, and it caused the audience to rethink the classic mode of watching a performance.
While Image in Motion intended to explore the relationship between art prints and dance, the relationships between the dancers and the space and the accompaniment was much more dynamic. One of the most meaningful moments of the night was when a member of the dance faculty, preluding the show, discussed the current tensions and fears within today’s recent culture, and how dance and art serves as a means of expressing and strengthening oneself in the midst of outside turmoil.
