August 30-September 2, 2012
Fresh Arts Coalition’s claustrophobic Spacetaker Gallery made a perfect setting for Frame Dance Productions’ The Black Space, a dance/film/installation work about sorrow and forgiveness choreographed by Lydia Hance.
With mascara-dripping eyes, Hance, Kristen Frankiewicz and Jacquelyne Boe each took to the corners of the room to work out their angst, while the audience was free to move about, and if they chose to, also move magnetic words about. The intense dancing worked better than the audience moving words, which grew distracting and seemed disconnected to the rest of the piece. Yet, the eerie performance was best experienced when I moved to each dancer rather than plopped in a chair. Hance is still working out her ideas on how best to combine dance and installation, and the audience is as well. It’s inherent in the idea that we do work and, if we like, interact. Some awkwardness is part of the plan.
Hance, Frankiewicz and Boe’s authentic and committed performances, along with the opportunity to be in such close proximity to their interior dramas, made for one surreal evening.
—NANCY WOZNY
