Hang In There! NobleMotion Dance Digs Deep Questions, Topples Easy Answers In Cave Exploration “Stalactites”

Imagine a stalactite. The stalactites, if you need a reminder, are the hanging-on ones and the stalagmites, their brothers, are the standing-up ones. Both are formed by the same process of dissolution, precipitation, and depositing of minerals. Stalactite formation is a way for the minerals in rock to distill themselves down to an elegant point. It takes time. 

Imagine a cave. You were probably already imagining a cave since that is where stalactites happen, but now pull back. Think of the whole cave. Think of different caves with various depths, widths, danknesses, and darknesses. Think about the difference between a landscape with sky, ground, horizon, and a sun moving predictably from east to west, and the anti landscape of a cave where the light diminishes or disappears, where stalactites and other formations cast bending shadows, where sounds bounce off unseeable surfaces near and far. It’s disorienting, and it’s fundamentally different from the outside, exposed world.

What do you do with a cave?

Caves are natural places of preservation, protection, and privacy. As such they have been used to house artwork, documents, and other secreted “treasures,” as well as families, armies, and ceremonies throughout human history. They stand as a metaphor for tomb and womb, for secret and mystery, for the ancient, and for encounters with each of these ideas. 

What do you do with a cave if you’re a dance company?

You pick your adventure, your themes, your team, your artistic encounters and influences, your formations, your disorientations. Then you invite the audience in and let the cave work its magic.

NobleMotion Dance has built a cave, strong in its materiality, strange in its lighting, and evocative in its soundscape. Andy and Dionne Noble set the stage for encounters with past, present, and future using human archetypes and this cave setting that places the dancers and audience in a mysterious elsewhere.

The cave-dancers – Dillon Bell, Wesley Cordova, Deontay Gray, Kalli Loudan, Sheena Kapila, Lindsey McGill, Maria Perez, Tyler Orcutt, Jacob Regan, Lauren Serrano, and Angelica Villa – constructing communities on stage that are both challenged and supported by their setting, including the industrial-sized prop/sculpture made by frequent collaborator and dancer Jared Doser, the set design created by Ryan McGettigan, the unique lighting set-up by designer Bryan Ealey, and the 61-minute continuous score by musician Travis Lake. 

Dionne Noble identifies Stalactites as being about dualities; dark/light, give/take, hunter/prey, stalactites/stalagmites. As the dancers move about their cave, the audience can appreciate these dualities in both a symbolic and a scientific way. We watch forces in motion, feeling the equal and opposite reaction to every action on the stage, finding parallels between the efforts and balance of the dancers in space and the efforts toward balance in the community their characters inhabit. 

The cave houses a small, archetypal community, and the Nobles use this simple social system to broach broad ideas. It is the same strategy Plato used in his allegorical cave. In fact, the two caves cover some of the same territory, namely, how does an “inside” group adapt to “outside” influences?  

Plato used his cave-dwellers to illustrate the limits of human understanding and the development of misinformation. Stalactites considers an “outside” influence so complex and far-reaching that most of the community cannot readily understand either its source or its implications.

This influence could be any social disruption – war, epidemic, air travel, the printing press – but now is a good time to address the revolutionary technology that is artificial intelligence. AI has certainly been on the minds of Andy and Dionne Noble, as anyone following their recent work can attest, and they were privileged to present their piece Meeting of  Minds at the “AI for Good” Global Summit in Geneva in May. The experience left the company co-directors stunned and dismayed by the unadulterated enthusiasm other attendees had for this new technology. 

“We were shocked,” says Andy, “Why weren’t people asking more questions?”

The questions, and the answers, are largely theoretical at this point. No one is putting AI back on the shelf, no matter what ideals it threatens. But the questions Andy wants us to consider are essential ballast against waves of influence, whether you are a cave-dwelling hunter or an audience member at a contemporary dance performance. The first question is, are you aware that you are being influenced?  Because you yourself are an influence, and because some influences are fantastic, this question could also be stated as good advice: be aware of your influences. 

The other questions are about our collective values and the impact of transformational influences at the level of society – again, allegorical and cave-based, or all too real and complex.

“What do we really gain?” asks Andy of these influences. “What are we letting go? What is the cost? And is it worth it?”

Hang in there, Stalactites. Dionne and Andy take us deep into the cave, but they will also lift us back out. While there is always a cost to adopting new ways, new tech, new influences, nothing is completely lost. “What is in the cave?” asked Luke Skywalker, and Yoda answered, “Only what you take with you.”

Each viewer chooses what to take with them from the performance. NobleMotion works are not prescriptive; they are always about questions and choices. Dionne suggests that we focus on being positive influences by choosing empathy and compassion, believing that it is possible to make collective improvements and expect betterment for ourselves and each other. This is not a magical spell – it’s not that kind of cave. Stalactites is a call for awareness, consideration, and conscientious choice-making. It’s a dynamic array of possibilities. Watch and choose what to take with you. Stalactites can be seen at Matchbox 2 at the MATCH, 3400 Main St, Houston TX 77002, August 22-24. Buy tickets here.