Skills Dance in ‘Intersections V4’

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I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t need anything unexpected; on the contrary, I felt heartened and grateful to see the company continuing to do that work – not to mention experiencing satisfying dance art. Andrew Choe, Director of Music and Operations, provided scores. Artistic Director Ellice Patterson provided choreography and audio descriptions (also edited by Amber Pearcy, and included in this program – as in all Abilities programs – for full accessibility).

In a pre-show address, Patterson explained how all honorees live at the intersections of various marginalized identities – and, as with each program in this series, each (excepting one posthumously-honored) had space and time to speak in a video before the work celebrating them. The continuation of this approach underscored the company’s consistent commitment to their work, their shining a spotlight where it hasn’t yet illuminated, in as wide a berth as possible.

The first honoree, Aubrey Smalls, has a form of dwarfism. He spoke about the incomprehensive, generally lacking nature of Little People’s representation in pop culture – and, at the same time, what he was fortunate to find in a ballet teacher who nurtured him as the artist he is, in the body he has. Claire Lane, Dara Capley and Aiden Marshall danced the enchanting work honoring him.

The spritely ballet vocabulary – lifted spines, small but floating jumps – reflected that teacher’s inclusivity and welcoming spirit. Their movement quality was whimsical and light, matching the fairy-tale-like tones in the score, as well as the circus performer history in Smalls’ family and personal experience. That feeling underscored how we can keep the magic while leaving behind hurtful tropes and behaviors that exclude.

The next honoree, Harmony Matthews, feels the most free while dancing. The performer’s story highlights how such a felt sense of freedom is, in the right community and environment, very much attainable. Matthews also runs mutual aid for community members who need it, as well as reading and educating others on what’s read.

The work celebrating Matthews – danced by Cassandre Charles and Linda Lin – was full of fluid spines and gestures, all set to jazzy music with the same smoothness. Articulations in movement reflected Matthews’ burlesque practice. Inwards and outwardly expansive movement reflected that personal creativity and community service. Later on in the piece, canon timing presented rhythmic layering as well as more clearly underscored each of the duet partner’s movement qualities.

Matthews had noted “enjoying” the “becoming”, creatively and personally. Dancers faced the audience and confidently extended forward, standing in the personal truth, identity, and that joy of finding who that person is. The work ended with an emphasis on rest, dancers stretching long while lying on the stage – the rest that is key with such personal creative process and service outwards.

A solo from Patterson honored the enslaved person and blind musician Tom Wiggins, a posthumous honoring. Audio description told his story, versus a video before the work (as with the other works in the program). For example, he played piano at the White House at eleven years old, uncommon ability and persistence leading him to rise above ableism and the confined cruelty of an enslaved life.

Patterson’s easeful movement embodied the soft piano score, a connection with Wiggins’ virtuosity as a pianist. Her feet swiveling, a turn reached into a leg long backwards. Wrists crossed and then arms lengthened laterally – moving into a more liberated expansiveness, just as Wiggins did through music. Her hands were fluid, like a piano maestro’s hands at work. The solo demonstrated how dance – shaped with intention and reverence – can honor those who walked before us, who helped show us the path to who we can be.

“I exist in many different realms”, noted the next Honoree TS Banks: embracing the sanctity of his identity, as well as his work as a disabled poet and advocate for those of various identities. He discussed questions of how to orchestrate community care when “resources are tapped”, and coming to better understanding of that work through poetry. He described lack of care in spaces supposed to be based in care; “trust and believe us,” he implored.

Cassandre Charles and Linda Lin, performing the work honoring him, danced vocabulary of circularity and multidirectionality – reflecting the expansiveness and imagination of a liberated future that Banks called for. Also reflecting such expansiveness, a non-unison section had them all together filling the stage. With voiceover describing poetry wrapping in care, they wrapped gestures around themselves. Care and energy must go outwards towards others and inwards towards ourselves.

The dancers’ easy serpentine quality evoked the freedom that could be possible in a world of such liberation, expansiveness, and adequate self-care. Towards the end, weight sharing and making shapes with both their sets of limbs underscored the intrinsically interdependent nature of such a world.

The last work honored advocate and activist Finn Gardiner. Another trio (danced by Claire Lane, Dara Capley and Aiden Marshall), it offered notably compelling gesture and shape. In his interview video, Gardiner shared an image from his childhood, of finding kinetic freedom by jumping on a trampoline. The dancers evoked such joyful release through their leaps.

With continuous movement and malleability, they made visceral key aspects of Gardiner’s advocacy work: the constant push-and-pull of victories and setbacks, yet also strength and groundedness in the work’s purpose. Offsetting two dancers with one illustrated the individual and communal nature of such work.

A moment of hands almost, but not quite touching reflected that continuous work it requires – that which must come with awareness, intention, and tenderness. Pointedly, lights went down on a representation of reading, of seeking and sharing knowledge, as part of that work towards a more liberated future.

We get closer to and further away from it as the world cycles – hence, the work as a continuous practice. Storytelling like that from Abilities – shining a light on the work and stories of those too often overshadowed and overlooked – moves us closer.

Such storytelling brings us into experiences beyond our own, burgeoning our understanding and empathy. They may even point us to how we, right there in the audience, might act to be part of building that better future. I’m not sure about you, dear reader, but this reviewer is in!

By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.

Abilities Dance, Abilities Dance Boston, Aiden Marshall, Amber Pearcy, Aubrey Smalls, Cassandre Charles, Claire Lane, dance review, dance reviews, Dara Capley, Ellice Patterson, Harmony Matthews, Linda Lin, online dance review, online dance reviews, review, Reviews, Tom Wiggins