Noble and Choate Collaboration

Noblemotion Dance first caught my eye back in 2009, at the Big Range Dance Festival here in Houston. I've been doing my best to follow the company's emergence as one of the more exciting modern/contemporary companies in Houston.

I'm rather taken with an ongoing collaboration that Andy and Dionne Noble (the co-artistic directors of the company) have started with light artist and designer Jeremy Choate. I wrote about their first collaboration last fall for Dance Source Houston. You can see that review here.

Last month, I saw their second collaboration, this time as part of the Jewish Community Center's annual Triple Focus, a part of the JCC's Dance Month. It was a fine program all around, but I've decided I really want to record some thoughts on one piece in particular, Light Blanket x44, the second Noblemotion/Choate collaboration. It was performed by four dancers, Jesus Acosta, Shohei Iwahama, Brittany Thetford, and Brit Wallis.

The dance opens with a hand held light, with only a woman's face illuminated. Tapping sounds appear to have her concerned. Smaller lights come on. It's a net of Christmas lights, spread over the floor. She gets up and tiptoes over them. bars upstage and downstage of her rise, taking with them two ends of a net of lights. She is "caught."

The three other dancers appear out of the darkness, but never in full light. They are shadow creatures and they're menacing without ever really appearing dangerous.

But more on the narrative in a second. The visuals were . . . what's the word? No single word. Delightful, stunning, magical. Those work for now. All those tiny lights created subtle shadows on the dancers. There are often dances where dancers are subtly lit, bu seldom with such a close light source. When some of the dancers were under the net and rose to standing, this eerie sort of reverse silhouette appeared, this human shape made up of tiny lights. And, I'm finding, hard to describe.

As for the narrative, this dance felt more narrative than the previous Choate/Noblemotion collaboration (Photo Box D). I wouldn't try to nail it down, but it was definitely a dreamlike state watching it. The tapping in the night, the appearance of shadowy creatures---it was scary in the way that childhood fears are scary. There is a repeated gesture, where sometimes the shadows, sometimes the "dreamer" (for lack of a better description), raise their arms in a "V" and vibrate them rapidly. It's a sort of "boogedy boogedy boo" gesture, the sort of thing you might do when playing with a kid. "I'm gonna get you!" Not a serious threat, but an awful lot of scary fun.

I hope they restage this piece again somewhere. Soon.

One last note. I should mention part of what makes this collaboration so interesting to me---and, I think, what makes for interesting results. Andy Noble has mentioned in interviews that the normal order of things is for a choreographer to make a dance, rehearse the dancers, and the week or so before it goes before an audience, the lighting designer is brought in to light the show. Jeremy Choate is not only a theatrical light designer, he also creates light installations, which appear in galleries and museums around the nation. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but it was decided that for once, the light guy gets to start. Choate creates a light design and then the Nobles choreograph for the design.

I understand there are more of these collaborations to come. The first two have primed the pumped. I've high anticipation and expectations for the next one.