Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet

My friend Kathleen and I went to see this company perform at Royce Hall on Friday.  They were doing a piece called Orbo Novo by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.  This company is becoming well-known for their innovative work with cutting edge dance makers.  Last night's piece was no exception.  It was an evening length piece built around a talk given by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor at the 2008 TED conference where she described the experience of having a stroke.  The thing that made her stroke experience so compelling was her knowledge of the workings of the brain and her ability to describe it as it was happening.  Luckily, she was able to recover and write a book about this experience.  At the beginning of the piece, two dancers sit at the very front of the stage cross-legged and while moving their hands and arms, start reciting Dr. Taylor's description of what happened when a blood vessel burst in her left-hemisphere.  As the recitation continues, more dancers join in, now moving their bodies.  Eventually, the recitation ends but the dance is just beginning.  The stage is set with some very large red metal grids that the dancers move through, around, and over, as well as moving the grids themselves to form various barriers, boxes, or open space.  The dancers perform in constantly shifting groups and configurations.  The music is a very spare string piece. 

The choreographer describes this piece as bridging past and future with the present but my feeling was of watching the inner workings of the brain, as embodied by these beautiful dancers.  Sometimes everyone was working well together, sometimes a single dancer had the spotlight, sometimes the movements were beautiful and fluid and other times it was angry, aggressive or painful. 

This was one of those inspiring dance evenings where I feel like I want to jump up on stage and join in, although I know I don't have the capacity to do what these performers do.

Apparently this company will be making a regular residency at UCLA, so I look forward to more innovative dance in coming years.