The Grand Dance by Deborah Hay (review)

water, cup by cup, from the floor to the top of the stack. When the higher bucket is full, it is poured in a cascade back into the bottom one. Like all such process works, what you see in Waterfall is what you get. There's no development other than the playing out of the system, and no narrative since even the minor suspense of the ending is blunted by a program note which telegraphs the epiphany. Instead, attention is carried by events generated from the structure's functions, such as the continuous rhythm and variations played on it. At a couple of points, the ritualized pouring briefly halts while the performers relax, talk informally, and even drink some of the carefully handled water. From such tinkering with the ongoing machinery emerge Waterfall's small pleasures. Waterfall adheres to the process dictum of a reduced, simple task on which to work systematic permutations. What results is a static composition of mild abstraction with white costumes, de-personalized roles, and repetitive action, all to further emphasize the priority of formal arrangements over any trajectory stemming from subject matter. As a form, this set-up resembles an imagistic poem more than a discursive narrative (a systemic poem is used to time the piece's actions ). Waterfalf's one hour length, however, aspires to the latter's effects and thereby dilutes a strong impressionistic impact. Such a length appears to stretch its brief insights on a frame that calls for a more expansive and overall view. After some twenty minutes, the novelty pales and an initial wonder fades into ennui as one waits out the inevitable end. Since Idea governs the performance, the weight of "interest" falls on execution, and these performers exhibit a consistent precision throughout. In an approach also typical WATERFALL of most process work, the group creates a collective identity based on interior absorption in a complicated ritual. While hardly acting , their presence registers as something beyond matter-of-fact doing (the other process performing choice), motivated by a system complex enough to require a constant attention to avoid mistakes. Here a touch of the exotic impinges, as British accents , unknown personalities, and a clearly strenuous discipline figure as a subtext of color to an American audience. That the action of Waterfall creates a nominal ritual does not diminish the considerable skill with which the performers present it. John Howell Deborah Hay, The Grand Dance. Danspace at the Third Street Music Settlement (March). Deborah Hay's work In the 1970s has been amongst the most problematic of art created under the rubric of "modernist art." In a manner similar to, but far from identical with, Beckett, Hay's art has evolved to a point of ,tracery: the existence represents the moment of dissolution. Her recent solo work derives from a kind of reverie: the performance is evocative in belonging to memory while in process. When Hay, who has spent years developing precise forms for the deployment of large groups (culminating in Ten Circle Dances), began performing solo dances three years ago, she would spend a large part of the performance talking to the audience.The idea of "the dance" as a direct address involved a derangement of the usual terms of the art form. (As Douglas Dunn remarked in a performance , dancing is talking, talking is not dancing , dancing is not talking.) Hay is attempting to communicate the contours of a sensibility ,a task which necessarily puts astrain on the formal limits of an art not usually involved in such holistic aesthetics. Recently, her work has been accompanied by the presence (and active participation) of musicians, most notably Bill Jeffers. The collaborative 36 nature of this venture cannot be overstressed , as Jeffers provides a counterpoint which reflects and advances the movement possibilities. In her recent solo, Hay was involved in a series of movements which went from a highly theatrical manipulation of brightly colored cloths to an extended movement tapestry entitled The Grand Dance. It is a series of movements, developed by Hay for her work with large groups, which are imagistic renditions of states of being. For Hay, these states are a daily imperative; her concentration on these images...