Up in the Air Audience in the Park

Watching the Dance Audience in the Park

By Sara Draper

I am not a dance reviewer, but here I am writing about Erin Reck’s 2:00pm dance happening at Hermann Park today, Up For Air.  It is Saturday, May 18, 2013.  Mainly, I want to recall observations of children and other accidental audience members who happened upon the event.

But first you need to know that it was deliciously warm near the Duck Pond (also called the Reflection Pool), and blissfully blustery.  Like a John Cage soundtrack, the sounds of cascading water, leaves rustling, people talking, the zoo train whistling and its mechanized rattle, birds chirping, and other ambient sounds created the basic soundscape.  A handful of singers punctuated various portions of the event with heavenly harmonies and interesting solos in languages that I don’t know.  Like the thirty or so dancers, the singers were dressed in all white clothing, each a unique outfit that could have been pulled from his or her own closet, and white sneakers.  We, the deliberate audience, were gently directed to the best viewing area for each piece of the happening, beginning with facing the length of the pond to welcome a mass of beautiful beings dancing and walking in the water towards us.  The dancing was gentle and looked as natural and as full of variation as nature herself.  This was a multisensory experience, feeling the sun’s beaming heat, the respite of occasional shade, the cooling breeze, the park sounds, the occasional un-amplified vocalists singing, the white outfits and hair blowing about, the beings who walked and danced in the water, with and among the trees, in the grass, on fountain structures, sometimes watching other performers attentively, sometimes performing.

We eventually made it to an alcove as we faced north, our backs to the pond, dancers and singers filling the open space, with others standing, partially hidden, in the arched walkway that framed the area.  The dancing was slow, sustained, flowing.  Two little boys, I guessed age four turning five, one holding a found stick, stood on the bench-like structure leading to the alcove, and watched.  “What are they doing?  Oh, they’re dancing.” “ Yes, they danced in the water over there.” “ What, they danced in the water?”  Boy with stick: “When are the BOYS going to do it?”  He jumped down, close to a motionless singer, and broke into some fancy footwork reminiscent of break dancers.  I was afraid he might hit the singer with the stick as it flailed during his jig, and wondered where his grown-up was, but then he jumped back up by his friend quick as a wink.

Just then, one of the singers broke into a body rhythm, beating on her legs.  The others joined in, and the dancers broke into a vivacious series of lifts and energetic moves, and the boys were spellbound.  There was more to watch than one could take in all at once.  The piece then alternated between the gentle fluid bits and the vivacious rhythmic bits, and the boys could not look away.  One of them joined in the leg beating.  The boy with the stick said excitedly, “Someone jumped over!  Someone jumped over!”  Indeed, the dancers were escaping in delightful, varying ways through a kind of window built into the alcove structure, disappearing to the other side.

Right after that, a line of dancers dashed away from the far side of the “backstage” of the structure, letting a giant, wide streamer of white fabric fly overhead and behind as they ran.  The boys made some exclamations and the one with the stick said, “How did they get that?  I want to see how they got that!”  and ran to look at the hidden area, apparently to see if there were any more streamers that he could get, too.

Later, as the dancers performed in the fountain square at the far end of the pool, two little girls who seemed to be older and younger sisters, caught a glimpse and said, “What’s going on here?  Oh, it’s dance!  They’re dancing!” very excitedly, and started to run closer, then suddenly halted and waited for their mother, who ushered them into the Japanese Gardens.

As this performance section neared its end, a flock of black starlings rushed overhead from far beyond the dancers, passing over them and then over the onlookers’ heads after one of their beautiful sky-blackening loops, noisily adding to the soundscape, and punctuating the start of the transition to the next area/dance.  Their appearance was so startling and so beautifully timed and placed with the dance, the entire audience gasped and “wow”ed in wonder.  It was a magnificent, magical moment in the intersection of art and nature, aptly illustrating the happening’s subtitle: “Human form merges with nature in epic proportion”.

When we reached a small pool structure on the south side of the pond, I was interested to see several men sitting on the benches on the far side of the pool, relaxing as they watched the rear view of Kristen performing her angular, twisting solo of trepidatiously shifting from block to block in the pool.  The men looked as though they could be homeless, and were comfortable in their shady spot.  After the event, a friend was surprised to learn that I had not seen the men drying their clothing on the pool’s edge, apparently having just washed them in its water, then moving their belongings out of the way as the performance invaded their laudromat.  I suppose they are used to having to be good sports, and in this case their reward was a house concert of sorts.

There are other moments I would mention if I were reviewing this work – the duets and quartets with trees; the background dance on the huge, ancient branches of a particular tree that my granddaughter loved to “ride” when she was a toddler; the ensemble bit made of trees, streamer, dancers, with a cameo appearance of the zoo train; the gathering in the water at the finale.  But I really just wanted to share what I saw of the “accidental audience” in the park.