The word “Eupnea”, the title of CPR Dance company’s current season’s traveling concert, is literally defined as the breath at rest—our mode of breathing that does not require conscious thought.
Likewise, the eight dances of this two-hour performance, five of which are premieres, are meant to be immersive, experienced simultaneously by audience and dancer in body, mind, and spirit without too much concern for meaning or an overemphasis on narrative. It’s meant to be breathed in, breathed out, as if unconscious and unlabored.
It may sound a bit pretentious, but this extraordinary, diverse company of dancers and what they offer is anything but. Exquisitely trained, their movements are both wonderfully expressive and precise; with deep roots in classical ballet technique, they explore the possibilities of dance through forms lyrical, contemporary, modern, and hip hop, experientially sharing embodied themes of connection, longing, identity, and movement itself.
And yet, as excellent as their technique and artistry is, this company doesn’t take itself too seriously. This is tremendously charming. A breath of fresh air, one might say. Some of the most compelling movement here is laugh-out-loud funny.
In “Take the Balloon Lightly”, choreographed by Abby Marchesseault and set to a sweeping orchestration by Niccolò Paganini, five dancers in flowing red pantsuits lift and spin each other, do handstands and fish dips, pirouette their way across the floor, and turn toward and away from each other in a terrifically athletic and balletic display which then gives way to one of them blowing up a white balloon. White balloons emerge from the wings and the dancers share and fight over them, tossing them as they grand jeté, until one pops and its partner is lost and bereft. It’s an utterly jubilant piece that shows just how skillful these performers are as both actors and dancers, particularly the tremendous Dennis Davis, to show us anew that you can hold onto something so tightly you’ve already lost it.
Another premiere, “Extinct Yet Not Expired”, also makes use of objects, and though not overtly humorous, it summons another physical reaction from the audience—that of goosebumps in response to creepy recognition. Executive Artistic Director Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers created the dance in collaboration with its 10 dancers who carry and transfer a suitcase, filling it with personal effects, such as items of clothing, a leather-bound notebook, and a recorder, only to remove them, use them, share them, place them back in the suitcase beautifully. It all symbolizes the legacy of our ancestors and mentors that lives on in us long after they’re no longer physically with us, which we powerfully see in the final moment in which all the objects laid out on the floor create a physical representation that very much feels like a ghost.
More pedestrian dances (and that is no shade, given that movement of all kinds is artfully explored and celebrated here) include Dennis Davis’s playful “After Hours” that makes relaxed use of walking, pushing, twirling, rolling, and slapping; Sara Kausch’s “There Are People”, in which the dancers wear sneakers, then take them off, and trade them—amid sounds they make, including audible breaths, clapping, slapping, and brushing, before the movement becomes more lyrical and musical, set to ambient electronic music; and “A Cut Path (how recent)” from Ashley Deran and Emily Loar, of Project Bound Dance, Chicago, wherein three dancers repeatedly bend one knee, then sweep their arms, rotate their shoulders only to give way to uptempo walking, rotating lifts, reaching arms and legs away from each other, and diving up through each other’s arms, “a reflection on our pathways and commutes both familiar and new”, according to the program notes.
This is the effect of “Eupnea”, a reminder that all movement, linked to breath, can be elevated to an art when fully experienced, and that when generously shared, there is no separation of dancer from the dance—or from audience and the dance. In the hands of such a skillful company as CPR Dance, we can be moved by and feel utterly connected to that which we witness without needing to intellectually understand why.
Eupnea
CPR Dance
July 19-20
https://www.inhalemovement.com/upcoming
