I have no other word, but to say, “Wow!” about the Fall For Dance performances at City Center. From the theater, to the lights, from the live music, to the lack of music, from the uniform costumes, to the different costumes, everything was just so beautiful and impressive. I was especially taken aback by Vincent Sekwati Koko Mantsoe’s dance piece. His entire solo consisted of him rendering the quick and arbitrary movements of a wild bird. His arm gestures and sporadic movements of his head captured the essence of a bird. The first half of his piece had no music, except for his whistling and his forefoot bones hitting the stage. The mood he set through the sounds he made with his own body made me feel as though I was in the jungle and watching a wild animal. As I was watching his choreography, I was drawing the different patterns that I was observing and his body movement. If one were to look at my sketches without prior knowledge of what I was observing, he or she would most probably guess a bird because of the wide and bird-like wingspans I repeatedly drew. His ability to capture the movement of a bird all in one dance was just mouth-dropping and impressive.
