Thursday, July 28, 2011
Dance Review: PLOT
Posted by Andrew Alexander on Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 1:14 PM
- Karley Sullivan
- Emily Christianson, Camille Jackson, and Alisa Mittin perform in the opening scene of Dance Truck's production of Blake Beckham's PLOT at the Goat Farm.
PLOT is a performance piece for four female dancers conceived by Atlanta choreographer Blake Beckham, who also performs in the work. Audience members follow the action across several interior and exterior locations of the Goat Farm, a complex of former industrial buildings on Atlanta's Westside, in a progression of scenes somewhat corresponding to phases of the life cycle. There's youth, play, loss of innocence, growth, labor, age, death and decay, but there's also the ineluctable sense of the hopeless and senseless tangle of the phases: each phase seems to send its shoots into the others. Performers possess, even from the opening, a grim, conclusive acceptance of life's harsh realities. There's one moment of laughter, but it comes at the end: a giddy realization of being on the brink of the abyss and having been there all along. There's a moment of breathy intimacy, but it seems to happen in a room for the dead and leads not to satisfaction, but to an insoluble tangle of adversarial words.
With wonderful music, lighting, design, and atmosphere to spare, the fledgling arts organization Dance Truck has created an immersive performance on a large scale but with a small, sharp, unsparing focus. It's very Southern and unsentimental in its imagery: the raw settings are simultaneously verdant and decaying, and there's a fascination with land, beauty, death. Its strongest scene is undoubtedly in the cellar-level Rodriguez Room with a tree-like root system beneath the stage, candles, earthy scent. The scene is lit by vintage light fixtures that were found at the Goat Farm, dusted off, and repurposed for the performance. There's a strange, creeping sense that the show might have a similar origin: PLOT is a site-specific performance in which the site itself seems to have had a hand in the creation. A beautiful sunset lights most of the scenes, hawks call out two-pitched cries above, trains rumble by, ants crawl through the summer foliage that spills out of even the most unlikely places in the decaying brick and rusting metal.
It's a credit to the makers of PLOT that you're able to forget about their hard work so easily. PLOT was not, in fact, found on the property: it is the first major evening-length show of the fledgling Atlanta production company, and the artists have brought to life a gorgeous, bleak vision that features the Goat Farm's evocative atmosphere of decay and new growth front and center. It's a stunning work. For all its effort, motion, and activity (the audience follows a vintage truck from site to site for the various acts of the performance) there's something wonderfully still and quiet and contemplative at the center of PLOT.
Dance Truck presents PLOT at The Goat Farm, 1200 Foster St., from July 28-31 at 7:30 p.m. Each evening. Tickets are $14-20. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit Brown Paper Tickets.
Comments (1)
Showing 1-1 of 1
You can see a few more pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/burnaway/sets…
like
dislike
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Drawing dance at the Decatur Arts Festival
CORE, Beacon highlight dance offerings
-
Paul Luna isn't finished with PARKatlanta 1
Chef files another lawsuit claiming private parking-enforcement deal violates city's charter
-
That poor baby beluga died 4
Experts say beluga deaths are unavoidable, but deaths in captivity are
- More »
More by Author
-
Atlanta dancers to collaborate with world-renowned architects Scogin and Elam
Architecture and dance will converge in Atlanta this summer
-
The Alliance gives a taste of its 2012-13 season
World premieres by Pearl Cleage and Alfred Uhry headline new season
- More »
