Elise Butterfield

Dance History, Autumn 2014

Jennifer Salk
Close Analysis: Excerpt of Cloudless (2006) by Susan Marshall
A man and a woman walk towards each other to the center of the stage. The
woman hands the man a leather jacket and he slips it on. The man places one hand
over the womans mouth, another over her belly, and they face the audience. After a
moment of still, she starts to run away frantically and he holds her back. And again.
The third time she slips under his arms but makes it only a few feet before he is at
her mouth and belly again. By now there is a palpable anxiousness in the audience,
our collective barrage of mental images of gender roles, violence, and abuse called
up.
After the womans failed attempts to escape, the two begin to move together,
the man always keeping his hand over her mouth untilwaaaahhhhhhhh, the
woman lets a high-pitched scream escape from her briefly uncovered mouth.
Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells begins to play loudly as
the man covers the womans mouth again. Once more they are moving: limbs in big
circles, hand on mouth, shoulder on mouth, other hand again. They tumble in and
out of the floor, over and under each other trying not to break contact. Every few
moments we get a high-pitched scream like the first, breaking up the regular rhythm
of the music in the background.
Somewhere during the song the expression of fear on the womans face from
the beginning of this duet changed. We recognize that now she seems to be
embarrassed or ashamed of the noises coming out of her mouth; she is clearly not
screaming voluntarily. The mans touch seems to change, too; was it loving and

protective all along, in fact? The combination of her high-pitched, arching screams
and the pop music of another generation in the background is slightly absurd; what
felt boding at the beginning is now funny, and we as the audience arent sure when
all these changes took place. Though we laugh as the duet continues and the man
begins to scream, too, it is a cautious laugh because we arent quite sure if it is a
joke.

Close Analysis: Excerpt of Rassemblement by Nacho Duato

A womans voice begins to sing through the speakers as the dancer in front of
us begins to move. From a tense stillness she is pulled by the sound into movement
her fingers extend from her arm as if she has no wrists, her elbows are at right
angles, her fluid spine and shoulders carry her down, up, and around until she lands
in a wide second position. Here one arm stretches out fully, as the other reaches for
it. Her movement feels self-consumed with worry and frustration at once heavy,
tired, and urgent. These emotions are echoed in the powerful voice of the woman
singing, her notes moving fluidly and without accompaniment like the dancer in
front of us.
As both dancer and singer reach the end of the phrase, a shirtless man from
upstage rises and comes to the opposite corner of the stage to meet the dancer. As
he arrives she takes his hands and pulls them into her; her chest is concave and
head down, both of their hands are clutching her forehead. The two begin to walk in
slow, even, small, and low to the ground steps as a soft drum and background
singers come in to support the voice.

The man moves backwards, the woman, towards him. Gradually, she comes
closer to him. Her arms slide up his while her head remains looking at the floor. As
her hands reach his shoulders all four arms swipe down and around, and suddenly
the two are looking at each other with their arms above their heads, feet still moving
in that slow and steady pattern. Soon she is back resting on him, this time her arms
around his neck in a close embrace. We watch as she allows him to take more of her
weight, and perhaps some of her burden, too. Her knees bend deeply and her head
rolls back and around over the soft pad of their walk and the lullaby accompanying
them. Soon she has given him all of her weight arms still around his neck, their
embrace has lifted her off the ground and her legs pedal behind him as he continues
to walk, arms outstretched.
The intimacy between the two movers suggests that they have struggled
together for some time this is not the rage of a sudden upset, but rather the
exhaustion of an agony well known and perhaps ever-present. But despite the
fatigue of sorrow they experience, they keep moving, keep walking, almost without
even realizing it.