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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > September > 28 > Entry
Review: Blue Lapis Light’s ‘One’
Blue Lapis Light, under the artistic direction of Sally Jacques, has been animating the spaces of downtown Austin for years, staging site-specific aerial dance in places like a nondescript federal building or the abandoned Seaholm Power Plant. Often their performances transform drab or forgotten spaces by bringing them back to life through dance.
The company’s newest performance, “One,” is staged at the City Terrace of the Long Center, and in this case the setting is the real star of the show.
The audience sits in the middle of the outdoor terrace while Austin’s ever-expanding skyline pulses with light and sound in front of them. When dancers emerge from darkness and fill the space atop the concrete ring encircling the patio, the audience takes a collective deep breath.
The fantastic backdrop of the city allows the company to play with scale in striking ways. When Theresa Hardy, a lone human form, dances her heart out on ground level, she is dwarfed by the cityscape behind her, a visual metaphor for the way the larger world can swallow up an individual. Indeed, “One” seems to loosely tell a story of human loneliness abated by connection with others and with larger forces.
The choreography stays in the realm of the company’s previous work. Dancers twist and twirl as they climb into the air on pale blue silks, and they appear to fly around the terrace’s pillars, suspended from harnesses.
For most of the hour-long performance, “One” sustained a slow-to-medium pace, and some of the evening’s best moments were when unexpected movement jolted the viewer out of the slow reverie. As the primary soloist, Theresa Hardy is eye-catching. Her movement is graceful, articulate, and tinged with emotion.
To complement the dancers, lighting designer Jason Amato creates dramatic visual effects. The music (by various artists) is often meditative, at times soaring, always actively giving the performance a sense of event and otherworldliness.
As “One” began, a few people taking their dogs for a late night romp at Auditorium Shores collected along the street, transfixed (and maybe a little confused) by the sight of dancers dangling in the air. But that’s part of the joy of site-specific art — it takes performance out of the theatrical black box and creates images of beauty in unexpected places.
“One” continues at 8:30 p.m. through Oct. 3, City Terrace, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr. $22-$52. www.thelongcenter.org.
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Comments
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By Sarabeth
September 28, 2010 4:42 PM | Link to this
I agree with the previous comment. I’ve seen Blue Lapis Light perform in several different places and it always seems they’ve done the same performance with the same moody tone. The setting may change but the movement of the dancers never does.
By Josh
September 28, 2010 1:56 PM | Link to this
would love to see this company stretch themselves by creating an aerial work with an entirely different tone. comedy? horror? i’d be there.