Cloud Gate Dance Theatre’s “Wild Cursive”

First, I want to explain that I am not writing formal reviews for Re:View. I still do that for mnartists.org and the Mpls-St Paul blogs, which is where you can find my formal review of this performance (look for it later today).

Instead, I’m going to use this space for more informal, glancing thoughts, and for questions.

“Wild Cursive”: I perceived each movement phrase as a sustained encounter between the brush and page. I clearly saw when the brush was lifted from the page–the pauses, the full stops. For me, this performance lives in the drama of the sustained phrase. How will the artist continue what he or she has begun? How will one movement evolve mindfully into the next? How will the artist continue to move forward in time without letting any of the myriad distractions time brings disrupt the impulse of the movement?

And, over time, I noticed the aggression here–not only the martial arts moves, the loud breath, the shouts from one performer–but the feeling of suspense, of each phrase as a battle with an unseen antagonist. I was reminded of the tightrope act of a line of poetry or a sentence in prose. Also, I noticed the isolation of the performers. Even when gathered in large groups, they all seemed to go on fighting their individual battles. Unison was no comfort. This sense of an ongoing struggle left me wondering–what, then, are the stops? Little deaths or little kills?

I’ve described them already as the moments when the calligrapher lifts the brush from the page, but this simply transposes the question to another artistic medium. Earlier yesterday I was with a group of poets, discussing the question “what is a line break?”–which is yet another way of posing the same question. So, let me ask you: what are the stops?

I’ll be back to discuss this further–or whatever else you’d like to discuss.