With just two presentations so far this season, the Dance Center of Columbia College is shining a light on some of the more far-reaching capitals of dance, first with a program starring contemporary African women and now with “(glowing),” a program that ambitiously strives to commingle modern dance, Asian butoh and African energy.
No small order, and choreographer Kota Yamazaki and his puckishly named troupe, Fluid hug-hug, are not always up to the mission. Yamazaki is better at stylistic fusion than at crafting a sharp dance scenario or taut, compelling program. His approach is essentially an impressionistic series of moves and formations, an almost stream-of-consciousness parade of the dance equivalent of a jazz riff–the six dancers variously work as if soloists, interacting briefly, their moves never really cohering for any kind of dramatic structure or evolution.
Moreover, at some 75 minutes, both Yamazaki and the performers are exceedingly challenged to hold our interest — “(glowing)” would glow more at half the length.
That said, Yamazaki is more focused on creating a meditative landscape than a traditional repertory dance offering, and in that he often succeeds. His method of fusion offers something of a butoh-for-dummies approach, mixing that challenging, slow-motion aesthetic with speedier sequences and bursts of animation — a blend more accessible to Westerners. It’s a piece that swings smoothly from minute gesture and the artful delicacy of his unusually thin-limbed modern dancers to frenzied, muscular displays by the African specialists, Marie Agnes Gomis and Shiferaw Tariku, along with shared exchanges of the styles back and forth. One section is a brief pounding medley of drumming feet.
Yamazaki employs design effects evoking the subtle pleasures of Japanese art, including a score quietly mixing melody and tinkling noise, stage lighting graced with the gradual shifts of nature. We’re drawn again and again to the minute.
But, for all its stylistic fascination, “(glowing)” sinks too easily into cliche — as when several dancers turn their backs to us and walk toward the rear, while another stands motionless staring us down. Yamazaki’s goal here is ambitious, but it requires distillation and purity — when a particular stretch sags, the spell is broken. Yamazaki is indeed a visionary, pointing the way without yet getting there himself.
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When: 8 p.m. through Saturday
Where: Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.
Price: $26-$30; 312-369-8330 or colum.edu/dancecenter