|
DAVID PARSONS
Founder of the Parson's Dance Company, David Parsons is one of the most sought
after contemporary choreographers. At the age of 41 Parsons has already created over 60 works for his company as well as for
the Paris Opera Ballet, Netherlands Danse Theater, English National Ballet, Ballet National de Nancy and BatSheva Dance among
many others. His latest creation for American Ballet Theater, Pied Piper, seems to have been designed with familly audieces
in mind.
Raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Parsons studied gymnastics as a child and developed an interest in dance at
the age of 12 after attending a performing arts camp. After graduating from high school, Parsons hopped on a train to New
York, working in a gas station in order to make ends meet. In 1978 Parsons joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company, eventually
becoming one of the troupe's leading dancers. Working for Taylor for 9 years, he learned the ropes of his future profession,
evenually forming his own group in 1987 with lighting designer Howell Binkley.
Parson's work combines elements of gymnastics,
ballet and contemporary dance and at the same time provides a vehicle for his dancers' exceptional technical skills. Perhaps
due to the fact that he refuses to be limited by any one movement or theatrical style, he has sometimes been accused of being
superficial. Taped for Danish television, The David Parson's Project reveals three of the works through which this multifaceted
young choreographer chooses to make himself known.
In Fine Dining, Parsons takes advantage of the medium of video dance
to describe a zany and surreal drama that takes place within the space of a day dream. Set in an elegant restaurant, a staid
older couple is juxtaposed to a parallel universe of fashionable trendy types. Quirky gestures and idiosyncratic movements
take on the hyped-up quality of Japanese animation. While appearing to carry narrative connotations, on close inspection the
complex, peripheral movement patterns seem to convey the emptiness of social banter. The contrived gesticulations of the tabled
mannerisms soon grow in amplitude into full-scale duets interrupted by flying bodies that veer off-camera in a blur of motion.
Like the involutions of a gaseous cloud, the individuals finally condense into a compact clump.
Set to Stravinsky's string
quartet, Brothers is a duo for two men performed mostly in unison, often in mirrored sequences. Repeatedly melding to each
other's shape, the men's precise geometry takes on a two-dimensional quality reminiscent of paper cut outs. Punctuated at
times by an elbow to the ribs, the pair seem to be opposing sides of the same personality. A counterpoint of he-man competition
leads to a crescendo of conflict, yet the bond that unites the two cannot, it seems, be broken.
Reflections of Four, set
to Mozart's woodwind adagio, is an evocation nature personified by four women. Set in a pool of ankle deep water, the piece
grows from a series of four solos. The choice of slowly contracting spirals and undulatory torso sways evokes the modern dance
style of an earlier era and yet remains contemporary in feel. In each solo the women resist the darkness of the pool before
succumbing to its sensual surface. Subsequent solos that begin where the previous one left off. While the dances seem a meditation
on intimate emotions, they may also be contemplated as formal, abstract compositions. United in the final dance, the women
refract each other through a prism of gestures expressed in canon. Bending down as if to return to their previous condition,
each is buoyed up by her companions. As if to calibrate their arm gestures to an unseen celestial object, they rise to their
to toes, transmuting the element of water into thin air.
Other works include Images, 2000, a collaboration with photographer
Howard Schatz, Bachiana, 1993, and his signature pieceCaught, created in 1982.
Further Reading:
David Parsons Images
Focus on Reality by Rose Eichenbaum, Dance Magazine, February 2000.
The Parsons Dance Company: Luminescent theatricality
or hodgepodge? by Andrea Grant-Friedman.
Dance Insider Flash Review, 5-19: Parsons's 'Piper' Packs a Peck of Pirouettes
by Susan Yung.
Images Video Clip: Voice of Dance
|
