![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Aj-Robert-Simpson-and-Jerron-Herman-in-Soliloquy.jpg\")
<\/a>Robert Simpson (L) and Jerron Herman in a still from Heidi Latsky’s film Soliloquy<\/em>. Photo: Zac Halberd<\/p><\/div>\n Ideal beauty has always been a slippery topic, certainly since Plato strolled the streets of Athens. We\u2019re pretty clear about structural archetypes, despite nature\u2019s occasional deviations and breeders\u2019 genetic modifications: sheep are quadrupeds with woolly coats; birds have wings; kangaroos hop. But beauty, most hominids have finally come to realize, is not a one-size-fits-all archetype. Obesity in a woman is admired in the Fiji Islands and elsewhere. The Kayan women of Myanmar wear towers of rings that compress their shoulders and ribcages to create the illusion of a giraffe-like neck. In the latter half of the 19th century in Europe and America, women cinched themselves into corsets to achieve sixteen-inch waist (displacing their innards in the process), and what would be considered emaciation by some segments of society signifies beauty in many ballet companies.<\/p>\n Since 2006, Heidi Latsky\u2019s choreographic work has included The Gimp Project. The word \u201cgimp\u201d can be defined (relevantly in this case) as both a difficult way of walking and (by the Oxford English Dictionary as “fighting spirit”, \u201cvigor\u201d, \u201cinterwoven fabric”, \u201ctrembling with ecstasy.\u201d<\/p>\n Here is a statement from her company\u2019s website: \u201cThe mission of Heidi Latsky Dance is to redefine beauty and virtuosity through performance and discourse, using performers with unique attributes to bring rigorous, passionate and provocative contemporary dance to diverse audiences.\u201d In this case \u201cunique attributes\u201d refers not only the individuality of the dancers with whom she works, but to the fact that some of them have disabilities (she dislikes the negative aura of that word, since it is their abilities that she makes artistic use of).<\/p>\n The program of Heidi Latsky Dance, presented by Peak Performances at Montclair State University offers three diverse, yet fundamentally related pieces. The first of these is a short film, Soliloquy<\/em>, directed and choreographed by Latsky, that was created during a residency at the campus\u2019s Alexander Kasser Theater, with the assistance of a large roster of collaborators that includes Montclair State students.<\/p>\n The aesthetic that guides much of the film is that of extreme intimacy. At first, what we see projected on a screen that fills the stage\u2019s proscenium arch is mysterious\u2014and beautiful. Arms and hands swirling in and out of focus, a long panning of the camera along surfaces that could be skin or, wait, fabric. A gigantic human eye stares at us. Then the complete image of Lawrence Goldhuber appears on the right of the screen (once, like Latsky, a member of the Bill T. Jones\/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and subsequently her much larger dance partner); slowly, and in silence, he lowers one arm. That quiet moment acts as a signal to ignite more rapid, fluid motion. Chris Brierley\u2019s soundscape (plus music) emerges as a distant rumble.<\/p>\n Heidi Latsky and Jeffrey Freeze in Soliloquy<\/em>, still image. Photo: Zac Halberd<\/p><\/div>\n In extreme close-ups, we see heads nuzzling each other; bodies gently, sensuously tangling; tendrils of hair flying in response to motion we can\u2019t fully see; a pregnant belly; a man\u2019s broad, naked back; and more. Sometimes images flash by; at other times the camera rests briefly before moving on. The performers may be moving vigorously in and out of the frame; at other times they rest in place against a dark background, exploring possibilities. Robert Simpson\u2014a dancer who survived a damaging accident and is coping with Parkinson\u2019s Disease\u2014wreathes one arm around his head in an intimate dance of touching, pressing stroking, his face revealing the ardor of the effort.<\/p>\n At the end of the Soliloquy<\/em>, a full-length portrait appears of each of the ten performers involved, one by one.\u00a0 Just standing there staring at us, as if to say, \u201cThis is me; here I am. Take a look.\u201d Here is Alexandra Failes (those lashing black curls were hers, I think). Here is Evan Ruggiero standing on the only flesh-and-blood leg he\u2019s got. We\u2019ve already seen an image of Jen Brick, born without legs, balancing in a handstand (she\u2019s an accomplished acrobat and aerialist).<\/p>\n Dance for Film on Location at Montclair State University will, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, produce two more films over the next two years\u2014one by Nora Chipaumire and one by Doug Elkins. One fine thing about these films is that they, plus supporting documentary materials, will be available\u2014free and on demand\u2014to Montclair State students.<\/p>\n (L to R): Brynt Beitman, Heidi Latsky, and Gregory Youdan Jr. in Latsky’s Solo Countersolo<\/em>. Photo: Marina Levitskaya<\/p><\/div>\n In this program that Latsky has dubbed \u201cTryptich,\u201d the central work is her Solo Countersolo<\/em>. She herself is a dynamo\u2014small, nimble and agile, and it\u2019s not surprising that one aspect of her creative work indulges her appetite for unrestricted movement. She begins this 2013 work as the central figure embedded in a group of five (Brynt Beitman, Meredith Fages, Jillian Hollis, Saki Masuda, and Gregory Youdan Jr). Wearing black costumes by Carlos Arias, these others are in shadow, lined up at the back of the stage when Latsky moves forward into Robert Wierzel\u2019s fine, subtly dramatic lighting.<\/p>\n Rising and sinking, bending over, swaying her hips or lashing her arms, she might be a motor powering the others to change a facing or take a step in a new direction. A driving pulse that can also changes its quality underlies Brierley\u2019s splendid score, which at times\u2014in its own way\u2014 evokes music of the Baroque period, The choreography for Solo Countersolo<\/em> elegantly juxtaposes Latsky to the three other women and to the two men. She may join the women or hurtle between the men but she returns to her own soliloquy or threads it among them. Except for the dancers\u2019 one-step-at-a-time exits (they make me think of pieces on a board game), the piece is grounded in high-energy passages of dancing, whose style is both eclectic and personal. Some of the steps allude to ballet\u2019s pirouettes, ballon\u00e9es, and arabesques), but these are loosened and presented without fanfare as elements of vibrant, ongoing, multi-dimensional human traffic. Pale, horizontal strips become highways for the performers\u2019 travels.<\/p>\n Heidi Latsky (L) and Jillian Hollis in Solo Countersolo<\/em>. Photo: Marina Levitskaya<\/p><\/div>\n The choreography gives you chances to focus on individuals\u2014all of whom have extensive backgrounds in other companies beside Latsky\u2019s: red-haired Hollis moves voluptuously, powerfully. Fages has performed in ballets, and her legs slice the air with articulate ease. Latsky and Masuda, holding hands like two skaters, crossing the stage with peppy footwork; Beitman and Youdan cut through the space, their intricately designed jumping passages executed in perfect synchrony.<\/p>\n In one sequence, the cast lines up across the stage\u2014every other person performing one phrase, and the people between them another. But Latsky keeps re-examining her initial pattern or varying it; the dynamo who set this dance in motion lets it absorb and reinvigorate her. If the lights suddenly went out, you imagine that her movements could power them up again.<\/p>\n Latsky credits the dancers as collaborators in both Solo Countersolo<\/em> and in the 2015 Somewhere<\/em>. This new dance features the above-mentioned six (including herself) and adds Jerron Herman, John McGinty, Alexandria Wailes, and Simpson. The performers scattered onstage at the beginning lift their arms, tilt to the side, then freeze. Dressed in white clothes, they come to life again and thrash those arms around, twist their bodies, and become motionless again. This is a rhythm that will recur through the dance; at times, the still figures resemble trees in a forest that others pass through or rouse into life. Tiny lights on long wire descend from above, as more dancers enter, one by one. A bulb upstage left begins to glow as Simpson walks joltingly yet firmly across the stage and sits on a chair. He is placed downstage of that light, facing away from us, so we see only that he sometimes bends over or raises one long arm like a wing; you can imagine that he\u2019s conducting whoever lingers in the space in front of him.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>