We had the first performance of Frame Dances tonight - just after the first full run, when us volunteers in "Green, green grass" finally got to see the other somewhat more dancerly elements. It's pretty interesting, though it does push the concept of dance far. I gather from the web that this is innovative work in videodance: each piece here is filmed from above and broadcast on a screen on the wall, which is not only a different angle on the movements but liberates them from up-down orientation.
"Green, green grass" involves the members of Susan Marshall's dance group and eight of us "volunteers" moving horizontally across a small space of fake lawn. Four of the volunteers are young women (recent dance majors trying to keep the spirit alive while making ends meet as personal trainers, yoga instructors, etc.) and one is pioneer of disabled dance. Then there's Lynne, a dancer/choreographer, Mateo, her two-year-old, and me. (Mateo steals the show, of course!) Perhaps because Lynne, Mateo and I are in a vignette together, many guests assumed we were a family. Which is weird, but I suppose Susan has cast us as if we were a family group - I enter the frame, arching my back; Lynne enters parallel, pushing against me; then Mateo crawls through the tunnel of our bodies and we roll off after him.
It's a strange thing to be mistaken for a dad - it happened a lot in Australia, and once in South Bend when I went shopping with my friend J and her daughter (J was, however, disturbed at it, and went to considerable lengths to set people right). Strange but strangely gratifying - I don't mean because fatherhood would suit me well (though it might well). There's a kind of benevolent regard fathers (or men mistaken for fathers) of young kids get from passersby, very different I realize from what I'm used to. A solitary man is, I think, generally perceived as an outsider.
