The cool kids who attend dance class at The Wooden Floor, the renowned-and-respected Orange County-based program that enhances youth development through dance, are not among the bummed-out performers sidelined by COVID-19. Heck no! They traded in the closed-off dance studio for an asphalt parking lot. Under the command of a veritable P.T. Barnum of site-specific choreography, Stephan Koplowitz, the students took “agency” over their environment. In the Floor’s 38th showcase capping annual teaching residencies by top post-modern choreographers, they performed a moveable feast that occupied the entirety of the facility’s grounds. They’re young people — a spectrum of ages, not professional dancers — who we normally don’t review. But what struck us keenly about Koplowitz’s touring extravaganza (he used sidewalks, parking lot, parked cars, stairwells, spooling films, and yes, dance studios!) was one peculiarly apt staging.
It was a fishbowl dance for four antiseptically protected dancers.
Clad in basic white that hearkened the gear of hospital workers, covered by transparent plastic shells and face masks, they fiddled with strings of lights in a glass vitrine for a masked audience — themselves socially distancing. It was all a sign of our times, and, truth be told, rather sad. But watching, we were so engaged by this odd sight that you rather not lose time judging it. I enjoyed this creative stroke, as well as several others, for example, a textured takeover of a staircase. The percolating soundscape was by Robert Allaire; the vivid costumes by Jennifer Vaughan. Concept, choreography and marvelous films by Koplowitz, who delivered this beautifully integrated work on a large scale. He showed that virus who’s the boss.
Photo credit: George Simian. Dancers : Jessica Alanis, Beverly Mazon, Diego Teran, Evan Velazquez-Moreno.
Passage/Home, site-specific annual concert | The Wooden Floor | repeats this weekend.