Pages Out of Order

Yoshiko Chuma is a force of nature. If you ever met her, you'd know exactly what I mean. The intensity, velocity and passion with which she communicates is sometimes too much to handle. So I was surprised when, in the cab over to DTW, Yoko told me that her work is consistently finely crafted, deliberate and clean. I'd sat in on one rehearsal for Page Out of Order: M at the Mabou Mines studio maybe a month ago. I was mesmerized by the repeating and intensifying sequence of two men manipulating two tables, throwing them at each other, catching them, sliding over and under them -- interspersed was some text about national/cultural identity. I was excited to see the piece in its entirety, with the huge 8' x 8' cubes I'd heard about, and the video projections. Plus my friend Saori is in the show, and she is just such a phenomenon to watch.

I have to say that... I just didn't get it. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. Maybe it was the frame of mind I was in. But... There were a lot of things going on: two, and at times maybe three (?) projectors showing clips from b/w film (presumably Macedonian films, since the theme was Macedonia, and the piece was built through Yoshiko's experiences traveling and working there); the aforementioned texts about national identity and repetition/overlapping; dancing through, between, under these massive skeletal cubes; swaths of cloth manipulated to become different articles of clothing as well as wrappings for corpses; a live band which included of three amazing Japanese traditional instrumentalists and the kick-ass vocalizations from Sizzle Ohtaka, whose is also a benshi, or narrator for silent films; and Yoshiko performing a solo herself, while being masked and unmasked by screened cubes, projections, her shadow turning and writhing against the muslin.

For all these delicious elements, I could not for the life of me, find a way to piece them together in a way that made any cohesive sense to me. I left feeling as if I had just not studied enough Macedonian history, or Macedonian film history (sorry Kyoko-san) to fully appreciate what was being done here. But hey, let me in for God's sake. I'm not a dummy. Granted I am not a dance fanatic either, and maybe my theater-trained brain is too rigid to appreciate the internal logic of this work -- but if a piece begins with text or language, I do expect there to be a discernable thread, linear or otherwise. I read the reviews about PAGES being a commentary on art and political upheaval etc. but that's too broad, too general for me. (And it's like some kind of RULE now, that performance has to be political in order to be noteworthy at all). That's my main complaint about dance, actually, is that more often than not, there is no journey. For all the movement, the work is a static expression as opposed to something that moves, grows, unfolds and changes... OK come on, fight with me.