Escape the confines of our urban world and step into the ever-evolving, unpredictable world of the forest – a world unfamiliar and alluring, full of serenity and sensuality, conflict and metamorphosis.
“Set to a delicious assemblage of world music, in which soothing landscapes of sounds are peppered with punchy rhythms, “Forest” opens with the dancers clumped into a gnarled shape that suggests an ancient tree. Out of the tree emerges Jehlen, as a butterfly, dancing a blend of contemporary movement and classical Indian vocabulary with elegant weight, strength, and pounding rhythms.
As the work proceeds, the dancers become abstractions of other woods inhabitants, including at one point what appear to be feral cats, which stalk suspensefully and then battle it out in an exciting capoeira duet. An intriguing mound, made by one dancer draped on top of another, grows gorgeously into a tall tree. A quintet of spunky “four-legged” animals scampers about, creating a delightful musical episode out of the slapping sounds made by their feet and hands against the stage floor. Jehlen’s choreography makes extensive use of inverted movement, in which the arms are the weight-bearing limbs and the legs serve gestural functions.” – Backstage
Dancers:
Wendy Jehlen
Deanna Pellecchia
Mila Thigpen
Maki Somekawa
Neva Cockrell
Pradhuman Nayak
Danielle Bourdeau
Amelia Beard
Tara Weaver
Lights:
Pradhuman Nayak
Lynda Reiman
Jayne Murphy
Photos:
Yi-Chun Wu