Zata Omm Dance Projects presents Frames
Presented by DanceWorks
Choreographed by William Yong
Original sound score by Andre Rocca and video by Elysha Poirier
Runs March 19-21 @ Enwave Theatre
By Margarita Osipian
Five dancers silhouetted against a blank backdrop, a thin white line projected through their bodies, cutting the central dancer down the middle. The line slowly grows as it envelops all five dancers on stage. Heavy breathing fills the theatre and brings a vivid physicality to the dancer’s moving bodies.
William Yong’s Frames created an understanding of movement centred on the body, on the visceral quality of performance. Video projections by Elysha Poirier shifted the piece outside of the space of traditional dance performances, at one point, the dancers stood against the back wall of the stage and a sound wave ran over their bodies while the voices of the media projected through them.
Andre Rocca’s sound score added a beautiful element, bordering on eerie and haunting. When the music was taken away, the audience was left with silent, dancing bodies — a possible distraction, but also a good point to notice the music’s impact on the cohesion of the piece.
When the dancers undressed and performed nude, their minimalist movements became even more pronounced, but not forcibly provocative or risqué. Watching the dancer’s bodies without any costume or covering brought out the purity of movement.
The work oscillated between scenes of solitude with a single dancer on the stage and sections where all five dancers were intertwined. The beginning was laced with moments where the dancers were in chaos together — four dancers grabbing, pulling, and grasping the body of the fifth. One of the last pieces involved the dancers connected in a chain, their movements echoing and flowing through one another’s bodies.
As the proverbial fourth wall between the audience and the performers was broken, Yong tried to convey ideas about frames of reference, time and memory, and the impact of the media on perceptions. The dancers peered out through an imaginary peep-hole, pushing and pulling one another aside to get a better look. In the end, however, this piece was notable for its aesthetic beauty-the way the dancers bodies moved effortlessly through space, and the haunting quality that the interconnected multimedia design evoked — not these compelling, academic ideas.
