(photo by RJ Muna)
Creative lightning struck San Francisco this weekend in the form of RAWdance.
The company celebrated their 10th anniversary with two premiers highlighting how Co-Artistic Founder Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein continue to explore and evolve as both choreographers and artists.
Burn In intially channeled my favorite RAWdance motif—a trust-filled duet of lifts and movements emphasizing Smith’s power and Rein’s ability to morph into a china doll. With the entry of an unexplained third dancer (Victor Talledos) the piece had a deliciously defined sculptural quality moving beyond those in the company’s other works.
Talledos’ entry was neither explained nor resolved. A child completing a family? A third actor in the conflict triad of hero-villain-victim? This mystery is part of what makes RAWdance works so powerful—individuals are free to activate their own emotions and experiences to find personalized meaning in the overlay.
Turing’s Apple was the much anticipated (at least by this dance-loving nerd) exploration of mathematician, cryptologist and computer science rock star, Alan Turing. Although the Turing Test is still the de facto standard for work in everything from robotics to artificial intelligence, the tragic story of his demise is lesser known, but equally important.
Smith captured Turing's frenzied struggle to keep creating solutions while simultaneously being persecuted for simply being. The well-constructed use of video was far from gimmicky or distracting--the interlude added both texture and contrast to Turing's yearning predicament. Beautifully constructed sequences from the female dancers set the tone for a dramatic finish with multiple levels of meaning, far beyond the literal and expected. I saw it as both a commentary on the potential that Turing’s work can and has unleashed--a seemingly innocent, static object can turn deadly in misguided hands.
Turing’s Apple must be shared and spread—I look forward to seeing a wide range of audiences engage with and be transformed by this stunning piece.