Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

Sitting quietly in the aisle seat, I rifled through the program absentmindedly with mixed expectations. I looked around at all the strangers passing by: some giggling, some shuffling, some yawning, some stoic. I turned to my right to see two boys around my age. “Are you Macaulay too?”

“Yeah.”

…. And that was the extent of that conversation. Apparently they were from Queens, and the rest of their class was scattered throughout the theater. So I sat in silence waiting for the show to end before it even began.

But then the curtains opened, to reveal two dimly lit performers, a man and a woman as far upstage as humanly possible. As the woman crooned a beautiful spanish love song (or what I assumed as such), the man accompanied her on guitar. The buttery, but at times raspy, exotic warbling set the tone for the rest of the night: puzzling, but no doubt beautiful.

Then came a few more ensemble members creating music with their taps, claps, and something resembling a turtle shell. The tapping was phenomenal, but then the show rapidly took a turn for the bizarre.

I appreciated the time and effort it clearly took to master all the segments, but they were so abstract that I believe the only thing I truly could appreciate is the talent itself. Maybe I was tired, maybe I was not critically thinking, but I know for sure I just did not get some of the acts.

The “pauses” were long and many in between, which was not as expected. But, a break was needed to take a second to say to yourself, “WHAT?”

One segment in particular made me question my sanity, but in a good way. The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performed an eery duet that just blew me out of the water. It was simple, but mind-boggling. Two dancers hopped, swayed and pirouetted to a cryptic choreography to the tune of an interview with John Cage. The backdrop of sound was sometimes cut off, leaving the dancers to do their work in silence. The heaviness of the piece just struck me, as it’s little intricacies unfolded with each deliberate movement and choice of word.

I left with my feathers ruffled, but in an oddly exhilarating way. It left so many questions, and answered none.The absurd abstractness of it all was, in the end, a great way to spend my evening alone.