THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 24, 1994 TAG: 9410240071
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Dance Review
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Combining gymnastic agility with balletic grace, modern dance's forward-questing experimentation and a cinematic storytelling flair, the seven-member troupe of Shapiro and Smith Dance delighted the Wells Theatre audience Sunday evening.
Helmed by the husband-and-wife choreography team of Danial Shapiro and Joanie Smith, the program began jubilantly with ``Dances With Army Blankets,'' a dramatically whirling dervish in which five dancers were tossed, dragged, catapulted and caught by their companions in large, olive Army blankets.
The winsome ``Cafe'' followed, tracking the at-times turbulent interaction between a waiter and an amorous couple seated at his table. The schmaltzy waltz accompaniment underscored the dancers' amusing melodrama.
``Untitled,'' one of several abstract pieces presented, was a powerful meditation based on the ``too little, too late'' regrets of a Holocaust survivor. Clad simply in black shorts and unitards, the seven dancers stood shoulder to shoulder, inching forward then cowering backward to the eerie hiss of Scott Killian's morbid score.
The dancers twitched and convulsed grotesquely, rising then falling, a heaving embodiment of hope and despair, courage and defeat. The piece reached an affecting climax as a lone dancer walked across the prone bodies beneath her, then resignedly retreated from the human heap as the hissing sound crescendoed.
Program-closer ``George And Betty's House'' highlighted Shapiro and Smith's knack for acerbic, yet accessible satire, with its ``nerd's eye'' view of domesticity. On a kiddie-sized set, modern-day couple George and Betty are overpowered by their domineering child, their own self-imposed inadequacies and crippling inability to connect and communicate. by CNB