I went to the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performance on Tuesday night, October 27th, at the Power Center. It was absolutely breathtaking. The choreographer, William Forsythe, who is known for his “variously extended” and “warped” style of ballet, lived up to that world-renowned reputation. Each performance was executed with the same amount of grace and precision. Since the choreography was outstanding and paired with the incredibly talented dancers, all three pieces left vivid memories in my head.
“N.N.N.N” was extremely impressive because the dancers were on stage for twenty minutes without any music. They emphasized their sounds—clapping, breathing, and sniffing— while making very swift and controlled movements. That alone was enough to keep me engaged throughout the entire dance. I found myself in awe thinking about how much practice and focus it must take to memorize sounds while doing moves that are so physically demanding. It did not matter to me that the message was unclear. I was mesmerized enough by the fact that if one of the four dancers missed a single move or sound that the entire dance would be thrown off. They couldn’t talk and didn’t have an abundance of other dancers or music to make up for a miscommunication or wrong move. When the curtain closed, I didn’t think it could get much better but it did.
The piece that sticks with me the most is “Quintett”. In this performance, I could tell how extremely athletic the dancers have to be in order to dance so brilliantly. They were able to stay in character and focused while making fluid movements that took strength and agility. My favorite dancer was the woman in an orange dress. I found myself following her even while the other four dancers were on the stage. I enjoyed how her motions, especially with her legs, were always elongated and dramatized. When she kicked her legs up, it would be drawn out as if she was gracefully reaching for something on a shelf in front of her with her toes. The song that they danced to in this piece was not what I would’ve expected to be paired with a classical tune. At first I thought that the repetitiveness of the accompaniment would distract me from the dancers but it ended up fitting in very well. This performance had the theme of love. There was almost always one woman and one man dancing together. The theme of love, along with their exhaustion, created an apparent strong connection between the dancers. After this performance, I found myself smiling and couldn’t wait for the lights to turn on for intermission so that I could talk about what I loved and thought about the performance.
The enthusiasm that I had carried into the last dance, “One Flat Thing”. This piece had me at the edge of my seat. I knew that “One Flat Thing” was inspired by Captain Scott’s doomed trip to the South Pole so I was looking for signs of that. There were tables set up on stage, 4×5. I think that the tables were supposed to represent sheets of ice and obstacles that the voyagers had to face. I think that the dancers were representing the people struggling to survive. The play was really energetic right from the beginning, when dancers dragged the tables to the front, to the end, where all the dancers dragged the tables to the back. Doing this demonstrating that they were in a very chaotic state. The choreography, the back story, and the music created so much intensity. The way that the performance ended with a “bang” left me dumbfounded and satisfied.
I was astounded at the end of every performance. If the dance group comes back in the following years, it is not a performance that I would want to miss because seeing Hubbard Street Dance Chicago enhanced my appreciation for dance.
For mind blowing explanations of the organizational structure of “One Flat Thing”, click here.
