{"id":2319,"date":"2014-02-13T00:09:15","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T05:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=2319"},"modified":"2014-02-13T00:11:31","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T05:11:31","slug":"flying-with-broken-wings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2014\/02\/flying-with-broken-wings\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying with Broken Wings"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Rouss\u00e8ve\/REALITY appears at Peak Performances, February 6-9.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The cast of David Rousseve’s Stardust<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s a story you might read in the newspaper almost any day. An orphaned boy in an inner-city ghetto is sodomized by a foster father and bullied by the classmates he tries to emulate. The kid\u2014fragile, good at heart, not too savvy, and gay\u2014gets understanding from the school therapist, Miss Thelma, to whom he\u2019s sent to for acting up, and he receives stern, but loving and encouraging messages from his grandfather via Skype. An older boy he admires texts him an invitation to dinner in a restaurant. He\u2019s ecstatic. Afterward, his idol rapes him in a dark alley. For once, he stands up to his attacker. A brick is thrown. He dies.<\/p>\n

But this is not a news item that it hurts you to read. It\u2019s a dance drama called Stardust<\/i> that David Rouss\u00e8ve made for his Los Angeles-based company, David Rouss\u00e8ve\/REALITY. As in his Saudade<\/i>, seen here in 2009 (also presented by Montclair State University\u2019s Peak Performances), the specific actions in Stardust<\/i>\u2019s plot <\/i>are dislocated and transformed.<\/p>\n

\"Taisha<\/a>

Taisha Paggett (L) and Nguy\u00ean Nguy\u00ean of David Rouss\u00e8ve\/REALITY in Stardust<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

This time, the choreographer has used two very up-to-date devices both to distance and intensify the tragedy. \u00a0His teen-aged protagonist never appears on the stage of the Alexander Kasser Theater; his thoughts form on the cyclorama in big white letters. His longing for friends, his love of velvety old Nat King Cole songs, his tender feelings toward his digital wind-up hamster, his excitement over Van Gogh\u2019s \u201cThe Starry Night\u201d (seen on a class museum trip), his hope that a benign God is looking after him, his pain, and his loneliness\u2014all these are relayed by text messages he hopes someone will read. \u00a0Is God checking his e-mail?<\/p>\n

The projected words are interspersed with Cari Ann Shim Sham\u2019s Disney-sweet projections of huge butterflies, clouds, mountains, and the starry skies that Junior would like to fly into. \u201cNobody my facebook friend,\u201d he writes, but \u201cI no can never cry.\u201d\u00a0 His lonely misspellings and brave twitterspeak are both comical and heartbreaking. But he does, a couple of times, receive messages from his grandfather via Skype (or \u201cSkite,\u201d as the old man calls it). Each time, a giant, homemade-looking mock-up of an iPhone is wheeled onstage in a momentary dimming of Christopher Kuhl\u2019s lighting; on it appears Rouss\u00e8ve\u2019s face. Wherever he is, the reception is poor. Looking weather-beaten and speaking in a crackly voice, he lectures Junior lovingly about being strong and good and trustful of God.<\/p>\n

You know from the outset where this will get the boy, just as you know what is going to happen when he walks happily out of the restaurant with the big fellow he\u2019s so honored to be with. No surprises in this story.<\/p>\n

\"Foreground<\/a>

Foreground (L to R): Charisse Skye Aguirre, Kevin Williamson, and Michel Kouakou in Stardust<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

The people we do<\/i> see onstage dance. And their dancing reflects various changes in Junior\u2019s moods and desires. As does the music. King Cole singing \u201cNature Boy\u201d and other songs bespeak the boy\u2019s essential sweetness, while d. Sabela grimes\u2019s music and sound design conjure up the urban neighborhood\u2019s violence and raucous games.\u00a0 In the beginning, the ten dancers (seven of them past or present students in UCLA\u2019s World Arts and Cultures department, where Rouss\u00e8ve is a professor) are spread out across the stage, making quiet, unison gestures that expand gradually in scale and travel out into space.<\/p>\n

Some of the dancing that happens as the story begins to unroll puzzles me. Rouss\u00e8ve means it, I assume, to reflect the buoyant, optimistic aspect of Junior\u2019s thinking, but it looks generic\u2014big swirling turns and springs into the air and drops to the floor create a homogenous texture; nothing looks as gently quirky and jolting as Junior\u2019s mind. However, as Stardust<\/i> goes on, the movement becomes tougher or more playful or more affectionate, as well as rhythmically interesting\u2014relevant to the neighborhood as well as to the protagonist\u2019s state of mind. Familiar gestures are worked up into motifs: performers grab their crotches, inflate their chests, and spread their arms (\u201cyou talkin\u2019 to me?\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t look at me!\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"(L<\/a>

(L to R) Nguy\u00ean Nguy\u00ean, Leanne Iacovetta, Jasmine Jawato, Kevin Williamson, Taisha Paggett, and Michel Kouakou at play in Stardust<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Emily Beattie whispers something to Taisha Paggett, and it starts them giggling and shrieking with laughter out of all proportion to what may have been said. Paggett and Beattie, plus Nguy\u00ean Nguy\u00ean and Nehara Kalev dance, while others watch. Clarisse Skye Aguirre, Leanne Iacovetta, and Kevin Le imitate one another\u2019s steps. Aguirre, Kevin Williamson, and Michel Kouakou bolt into the foreground, while seven others form a chain behind them, making slow, mournful gestures. Jasmine Jawato takes on Kouakou. At times, they are the friends Junior would like them to be. A rainbow assemblage. Ghetto angels.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>

David Rouss\u00e8ve in his Stardust<\/em>. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Rouss\u00e8ve himself appears onstage unexpectedly, standing in one spot to perform a meditation tinged with anguish\u2014his arms fondling and pushing away air, his torso sinuous. Some time after that, Junior writes, \u201cMy grandpa dies.\u201d Johnny Mathis sings \u201cAve Maria.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the performers are vivid, and some are remarkable\u2014 Beattie and Aguirre, for instance, in tumultuous solitary outbursts. Near the end Paggett dances through a cluster of data: projected text recounting the rape; Grandpa\u2019s voice exorting, \u201cJunior, hear me in your dreams!\u201d\u00a0 Ella Fitzgerald singing, \u201cReach for tomorrow; today belongs to the past;\u201d and the Beatitudes from the Bible\u2019s Book of Matthew (\u201cBlessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God. . . .\u201d)\u00a0 Her beautifully nuanced performance anchors them all.<\/p>\n

Rouss\u00e8ve treads a very fine line in Stardust<\/i> between gritty tragedy and fairytale pathos\u2014never quite falling one way or soaring another. Like the fictional life it honors.<\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/a>

Emily Beattie of David Rouss\u00e8ve\/REALITY. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Rouss\u00e8ve\/REALITY appears at Peak Performances, February 6-9. It\u2019s a story you might read in the newspaper almost any day. An orphaned boy in an inner-city ghetto is sodomized by a foster father and bullied by the classmates he tries to emulate. The kid\u2014fragile, good at heart, not too savvy, and gay\u2014gets understanding from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[1081,1082,1079,1080],"class_list":{"0":"post-2319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dance-theater","8":"tag-christopher-kuhl","9":"tag-d-sabela-grimes","10":"tag-david-rousseve","11":"tag-taisha-paggett","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}