THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 29, 1996 TAG: 9604290072
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: DANCE REVIEW
SOURCE: BY SUE VANHECKE
STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
It wasn't jaw-dropping pirouettes or awe-inspiring extensions that earned the standing ovation for Doug Varone and Dancers in Virginia Beach Saturday night. Rather, it was dancer/choreographer Varone's keen ability to wring extraordinary expressivity from the most basic of movements.
The New York-based modern dance company opened the program with ``Aperture.'' On a blackened stage a narrow beam of light illuminated first just the faces and small hand gestures of three dancers. As the physical conversation became broader and more intense, the light beam also widened and intensified until the dancers were corralled by the pool of light.
The spry ``Let's Dance (Riffs on Seven Vernaculars)'' was a collection of loose-limbed, freewheeling abstractions of popular dance forms that also incorporated twists on typical dancehall gender roles and behaviors. In signature Varone style, the movements made the music concrete - Ella Fitzgerald's scampering scats, for instance, became fittingly jittery paroxyms of arms and legs.
``Strict Love,'' the evening's most provocative piece, followed, with a soundtrack taken from a ``best of the '70s'' rock radio countdown. To music flush with overripe emotion - from the Jackson 5 to Bread - the Varone dancers moved with stolid control and restraint, so regimented that at times the troupe resembled a calisthenics class. The stark contrast between movement and music called into scrutiny our notions of romance, nostalgia and sentimentality.
Program-closer ``Rise,'' the company's hallmark piece, was a stunning exploration for four sets of partners of John Adams' pulsing, metronomic score ``Fearful Symmetries.'' ILLUSTRATION: DANCE REVIEW
Doug Varone and Dancers
Saturday
at the Virginia Beach
Pavilion Theater
by CNB