Week of November 19, 2009, Issue #735
ARTS
THE EFFECTS OF SUNLIGHT FALLING ON RAW CONCRETE: The afterlife of modern dance
Brian Webb's latest keeps dance alive as a completely improvised endeavour
Fawnda Mithrush // Fawnda@vueweekly.com
After surviving as a contemporary dancer in Edmonton for over 30 years, Brian Webb has developed a thick skin. Not that he comes across as insensitive—he simply knows what he wants to say, and he's very aware that once it comes out of his mouth, people will have opinions about it.
And he never, ever balks at a chance to talk about dance. The last time I was scheduled to interview him, he answered his cell phone mere seconds after his car had been totalled to politely apologize and promise a make-up call later that same day.
So maybe that's why I quietly choked on my tea while sitting across from Webb and dance partner Nancy Sandercock as he bluntly states that "modern dance is dead."
"It's a historic form," Webb says, noting that he and Sandercock, a former student of his from the Grant MacEwan dance program, agree on that point. "Dance is evolving quite rapidly, as it always has, but how do you keep your dance alive in the here and now? I'm 58, I want to dance who I am today. I don't want to dance who I was 20 years ago."
That idea of keeping art fresh and current evolved into The Effects of Sunlight Falling on Raw Concrete, a collaborative duet between Webb and Sandercock that involves a host of "electrified" musicians, led by guitarist Dave Wall. The music requires four electric guitarists, two bassists and one drummer to be onstage for the piece, and the dancers cite everything from Nick Cave to Japanese noise rockers the Boredoms as influential on the sound.
What keeps this piece in the "here and now," they explain, is that their movement is entirely improvised within the structure of a "dance score," which is like a to-do list of tasks that must be accomplished during the performance.
Sandercock, a vibrantly red-headed solo dancer and musician now based out of Los Angeles, acknowledges the challenges that can befall an improvising performer. Of course there's some terror in taking the stage and dancing something different night after night, but she also admits you can become a junkie for it.
"At a certain stage you are looking for those challenges—you almost crave them because you know it's going to make the work better. [The terror] is just part of performing, it is living on that edge and being available to anything that will come—if you are available to that, then the terror is just an energy that you can use," she says, adding that working in improvisation allows the shifting nature of memory to be explored. "How can you trust a memory, and really be here and now with a memory that changed from the last time you remembered it?
"When we go back to [the piece] every day, there is the fact that we've gone through this before, we have rehearsed it," she says, "but there's always a new version at the end of the day."
"I feel that dance doesn't tell a story, dance is about dancing," Webb says. "It is a celebration of being alive in the moment, that's what the piece is really about
"This is the first piece I've ever done that's 100 percent improvisation," he adds, smiling. "That itself is a huge risk for me." V
Fri, Nov 20 – Sat, Nov 21 (8 pm)
The Effects of Sunlight Falling on Raw Concrete
John L. Haar Theatre, (10045-156 St), $18 – $28
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