Pink Hair Affair's "oOOoOoOo'

Nine playful pieces
in search of a vision

JIM RUTTER

In its sophomore Fringe effort, dance collective Pink Hair Affair’s oOOoOoOo debuted nine new works by seven of the ensemble’s choreographers. But the troupe failed to demonstrate growth as a company since its initial Fringe event in 2007. Instead, only individual works shone in an evening that offered tremendous disparity between the thoughtful and playful pieces, and the emerging styles of their better artists.

As was the case in the “dance party” number that opened Pink Hair’s recent In Memory of the Deathtrap, Laura Jenkins scripted an improv piece to open this work. Nine women strutted out in black mini-dresses, sporting their characteristic pink wigs and wearing pink glo-necklaces. As they danced in a circle, their movements blended playfulness with a pageantry and nightclub-like assertiveness, letting Jenkins’s piece set the tone for the evening— or, at least, for most of the works.

Her own piece that followed— “Orbation”— used a series of spinning disks on the floor. Jenkins and Jacklyn Koch— both clad in silver outfits with matching headbands like a pair of blonde Wonder Woman clones— spun on them like lazy Susans.

Later, in another piece by Koch (“Rotation Corporation”), the pair played two businesswomen whirling around on a pair of backless chairs. Flirting with a tilt of their heads, crossing and then re-crossing their legs, they provided an object lesson in the seductive allure of a hostile work environment. Though the initial effect was fun and erotic, both pieces quickly grew monotonous—too much spinning on a prop. At least I didn’t get dizzy from watching.

Later, in an interlude, Koch appeared again— with Kaleigh Jones— in a piece about an Oreo cookie. This goofy, occasionally fun work seemed only slightly less enjoyable than the evening’s other interlude, entitled “Pilates Ball.” Here, Jenkins’s fitness junkie executed textbook-style crunches and push-ups that contrasted against Ashley Wood’s more causal gym-goer, who fell off her ball while chatting on a cell phone.

Playful, yes; dance, sort of; but also capable of moments of startling visual imagery.

The evening’s best pieces either strayed from this concept or possessed a beauty that rose so far above the evening’s playful spirit that they seemed like choreographic outcasts brought in by outsiders.

‘Didn’t you read the program?’

Christina Gesualdi’s “Ooh Baby Rectangle” continued the playfulness of the evening but probed deeper. Her dancers, caught in an emotional triangular relationship, moved in varying patterns around a rectangle. Meanwhile, Jones and Koch popped their heads up above the backdrop and tease Gesualdi, asking, “What’s with the rectangle?” and “Christina, didn’t you read the program?”

Meanwhile, Rachel Slater’s poignant and beautiful “A Sympathetic Listener” and Wood’s “Fluid Reverie,” showed that individual effort too often trumps collective work, as both pieces displayed a depth of feeling that transcended the rest of the evening.

Slater’s three dancers donned distorted ballet-mocking tutus while executing classical attitudes and movements— sometimes solely, or paired, then uniformly. Dancing around a blanket, they cackled with a playful, high-pitched laughter, three girls on vacation taking a holiday from their customary dance forms. But while mocking in tone, these three women carving out their territory and finding a voice achieved a clarity that the other pieces (save Wood’s) lacked.

Breathtaking and ethereal

Wood’s piece— one of the most visually entrancing pieces I’ve ever seen— justified the entire event. She couldn’t have picked a more appropriate title than “Fluid Reverie.” Here, seven dancers moved in sync through a series of simple movements that they executed elegantly and luxuriously. Covered in blue body paint, Wood’s dancers swooned rhythmically in and out of a circle. The overall effect was breathtaking and ethereal, the feel of the choreography perfectly fusing with the music (by Boards of Canada) to create a dreamlike quality throughout. If Pink Hair Affair kept this piece in rep, I’d watch it every night for a week.

The evening’s diversity of quality and style made oOOoOoOo seem like a variety event put on by choreographers from different companies. If Pink Hair Affair wants to appear like an artistic grab bag, fine. But to achieve its goal of “creating diverse work” through which the “cross-pollination of ideas” can “help forge a fresh new vision of dance,” then this whole night needed pieces that achieved greater coherence and consistency and uniformity of vision. Nine pieces loosely centered on a simple, playful concept or title simply didn’t cut it.