Visceral Dance Chicago Fall 2024 review/New Art Dance at The MCA

Between November 21-24, 2024, Visceral Dance Chicago (VDC) presented its 12^th Fall Program at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The 5 pieces comprising the event, which included 3 world premieres, showcased this remarkable company’s well-known technical virtuosity, fully developed diversity- both intrapersonal and intra-artistic, unending versatility, and ballet-backed fierce athleticism.

THE PROGRAM:

Fielding Time (2024) is a powerful new work crafted for 6 dancers by internationally acclaimed choreographer Kevin O’Day, his second set on VDC. The movements, bodily and facial, embody the sensation all humans come to as they become aware of the fleeting nature of time: how it flees away from us all! With lashing arms, 3 couples of dancers, half the company, a flock of a species rare, are carried on the edge of sound, ultimately becoming a merry-go-round of acknowledgment; they are a vibrant living hourglass of expression mourning yet rejoicing as the sands recede too quickly. This is an intimate work, with the defining energy of the participants captivating onlookers.

Mad Skin (2019) by Nick Pupillo is a richly nuanced duet that explores the extreme nature of sexual attachment; it’s about the sense of desperation we’ve all felt when our fatalistic love receives no emotional response. We can feel these gorgeous dancers’ desperate plea to gain the attention of the exalted OTHER. Mad Skin combines exquisitely shaped physicality with subtle and delicate qualities that expose the human characteristics inherent in movement. The sense inculcated here is that tear themselves away though they try, these 2 cannot part from each other. An audience favorite, described by the choreographer as “a bird’s eye view of internal tension”; the trust and connection between the dancers is beautiful to observe.

18+1 (2012) by Spanish choreographer Gustavo Ramirez Sansano is a joyous piece celebrating Sansano’s 19-year career as a choreographer. The work, for an ensemble of 10 dancers, is set to a rumble of drums emanating from the playful mambo music of Cuban mambo king Perez Prado.  A line of punch-drunk puppets rotates back to front in a breakdance of stylized dressed-down simple loose black. Touchingly vulnerable Chaplinesque characters disport in devil-may-care clever rhythms with a display of electric choreography by the whole company. The audience bounced in its seats, engaged by the sheer fun of the performance. The piece is extremely intricate, bodies weaving in and out with extraordinary fluidity, arms flung wide, on their feet, their knees, in each other’s arms, in mid-air.

After the intermission, a set of 2 complex entire company premieres drove the full house to its feet in ovation.

Lost Together (2024) by international choreographer, director, and performance artist Marco Palomino is his first work set on VDC. Against a vivid turquoise background which ultimately blooms to red, the full company in white spacesuits control an elastic medium. They are internal expressionists utilizing external forms. The wholly original choreographic language is shaped by an ultra-modern base of ballet, floor work, Cuban styles and African folklore. Lost Together takes the audience into a saga of the known, the only-dreamt-of, the masked self. Startling personality changes emerge from immensely complicated movement.

In Pearl (2024) Pupillo, recognized for the power and passion in his work, mixes the rigorous proficiency VDC is known for with unique partnering and a magical connectivity.  This whole company new work stages one dozen dancers in smoky spiked underlighting as they unite to the sound of solo saxophone and hypnotizing electronic beats. There is an exuding of astonishing athleticism, in mixed forms, in lifts and runs, in thorough dreamweaving.

INTERVIEWS:

On the eve of the final performance, this reviewer interviewed VDC Artistic Director Nick Pupillo and Rehearsal Director Caitlin Cucchiara about the company’s identity, the current troupe of dancers, and the compositions on the program. Pupillo created and directs the company overall; Cucchiara was a founding member/dancer now wholly invested in training/rehearsing the current groups. They both discussed VDC’s emphasis on encouraging each dancer’s individuality while fostering cohesiveness within the troupe as a whole. 

Cucchiara:  “When I joined in 2013, I wondered, “What kind of Company are we? And the answer has been, we are diverse, we are always developing, there has ever been new and unique challenges to inspire us all. VDC has gone through so many beautiful and vital evolutions! The work itself takes us to unexpected places emotionally and physically, constantly causing me to ask who we are together inside each piece, what the reality is that we’ve created. It’s an ongoing intellectual analysis”.

Pupillo, “My vision for the Company has always been to exceed all our expectations, mine as leader and designer, the cumulative repertoire from all the choreographers with whom we engage, and each individual dancer. Then there is the reality of the performing audience-driven Company; I must create a space for each dancer to express their true self within the whole. Today’s Visceral Dance Chicago has an exciting new energy with the dancers coming together in a very positive way.”

THE DANCERS:

For information and tickets to all the great programs of Visceral Dance Chicago, visit  www.visceraldance.com to book now.