The Space Between Us and Seattle Dance Collective

Seattle Dance Collective completed its second season last Thursday with the online premiere of The Space Between Us by Bruno Roque. It was a perfect closer that united many of the elements from previous pieces while commenting on the conditions that created the program Continuum – Bridging the Distance.   

Seattle Dance Collective

PNB principals Noelani Pantastico and James Yoichi Moore created Seattle Dance Collective as a small, summer season contemporary ballet company. The company mostly comprises PNB colleagues, but included dancers from Whim W’him in their debut program (whichwas a highlight of last summer) and this year included Nia-Amina Minor from Spectrum Dance Theater.   

Continuum – Bridging the Distance

When the pandemic started, SDC adapted by developing Continuum – Bridging the Distance. It’s a virtual program of five new works developed under physical distancing requirements. Each new piece posted on a Thursday in July, free for online viewing indefinitely.

Every dance was choreographed specifically for this program, with the knowledge that it would be viewed as a video rather than on a stage. Rehearsals took place during the lockdown on Zoom. Only those who were already sheltering in place together would rehearse and perform together. At the actual filming, the crew wore masks and maintained distance.  

The Team

The choreographer for this last piece was Bruno Roque, who choreographed two pieces for last summer’s Program One. One of them, Anamnensis, was performed by Noelani Pantastico. Like Amanda Morgan’s Musings, the ballet in Anamnensis seemed almost incidental to the larger vision of the artwork. The other one, Frugivory, involved most of the company. It used a familiar contemporary ballet vocabulary augmented by unusual use of props and verbal language to tell a genuinely witty story.  

For this year’s piece, Roque choreographed on Pantastico and her cofounder of SDC, James Moore, who rehearsed with them remotely. I was very happy about this, since these are two of my very favorite dancers.

The Space Between Us

Choreography: Bruno Roque
Dancers: Noelani Pantastico & James Yoichi Moore
Music: Alexander Hoeppner’s Pulsating (alternative version)

Whether six feet apart, or thousands of miles through a satellite and fiber optic entanglement, the current distance between us is taking its toll. Beyond the absence of touch, we also miss out on non-verbal cues – when someone’s fidgety while talking, or inhaling quickly in preparation to interrupt. All that richness has been impaired. But hopefully soon, we will return to that bounty of social, physical interaction, and eliminate this space between us.

The Space Between Us is obviously a reference to our current situation of social distancing. The title was reflected by the choreography, which had the dancers performing the same movements in the same space, but at different times or the same movements at the same time but in adjacent, separated spaces. The spaces themselves reflected the theme, too. They used the closed restaurant mbar near South Lake Union. There, they danced in a long narrow hallway that evoked the restrictions on movement we all feel lately. And they used the rooftop dining area where Pantastico danced in the enclosed section, separated from Moore on the outdoor patio by a glass wall.

View The Space Between Us below, at the SDC website or on Vimeo.

THE SPACE BETWEEN US by Bruno Roque from Seattle Dance Collective on Vimeo.

Despite these layers of quarantine imagery, when viewed in years to come, I believe The Space Between Us will read equally well as a more familiar love story with a sort of Winter of Our Discontent theme of never really knowing what’s inside another person’s head however close you are.

The Ballet

The Space Between Us wraps up the program with a neat bow. It takes a step back from the more experimental approach of the previous weeks’ Musings into more comfortable – but no less interesting – territory. The slightly anxious electronic soundtrack suited the electric blue hallway. And suited the slightly uncomfortable juxtaposition of one dancer caught in the rain and another in the same frame, completely dry with the same grey-sky backdrop.  

Like A Headlamp or Two, the ballet relies on film editing in a way that could not be duplicated on a stage, while also relying on the restrictions and limitations of a specific location, like The Only Thing You See Now. It also shares the humor of that piece. The movement is not as pretty as that in Home, but then again, neither is the message.

But it is aesthetically pleasing – at least to me. In The Space Between Us, Roque does two things that I always like to see. I don’t know what the technical words are for them. But I like ballets where the movements feel inevitable, like the dancers are on a rollercoaster and there’s only one direction they could possibly go. And I like when dancers seem to be connected by invisible puppet strings or magnets. There’s some of that in Home. And it’s also in this piece in the way Moore and Pantastico mirror each other through the glass. There’s a moment I just love; it looks like Moore lifts Pantastico’s face by the chin, even though they’re physically separated. (You can actually see that moment better in the behind the scenes video. It’s not only informative but delightfully entertaining thanks to Roque’s incredibly helpful cat.)

The Making of THE SPACE BETWEEN US from Seattle Dance Collective on Vimeo.

Encore

A season encore will be posted on August 6. I don’t know what that will entail. But SDC certainly deserves an ovation for putting together such a creative and innovative program in the face of unprecedented challenges.

{Continuum – Bridging the Distance is free for all viewers, a gift from the artists to the audience during a difficult time. But if you enjoy the program and have the means, please consider donating to Seattle Dance Collective so that the show can go on again next summer.}