On Thursday night, the curtain rose on Toni Craige, Xan Burley and Alex Springer’s dance Performance, “Frame[work].” Six enlarged windchimes were suspended in the air while four bodies sat, rolled, ran, jumped and moved within the stage, occasionally hitting the chimes to create a powerful but enchanting sound that reverberated throughout the upholstered seats of Mendenhall Center – and this was only the first fifteen minutes.
“Frame[work]” displayed two pieces created by Master In Fine Arts candidates. The first act opened on “Turning,” choreographed by Craige and was followed by “Parts,” performed and choreographed by partners Burley and Springer. Both, in unison, illustrate the differences in sounds, spaces, movements and more.
Craige’s work and education as a bodyworker and mental health therapist are evident in “turnings” focus on exploring empathetic human connections and community. The North Carolina based artist’s focus on breath, choice and environment are consciously integrated into this work. She writes about the choreography as, “exploring ways of embodying collectivity and interdependence through movement practice as well as attention to the air – an invisible and often-forgotten source of connection across space, nourishment, and survival.”
Fellow creators of “Frame[work]” Burley and Springer also bring interdisciplinary elements to their work. The two artists – romantic life partners as well as creative collaborators – moved from New York to Western Massachusetts in 2018 to pursue MFA degrees in Dance and Choreography at Smith College. Throughout their fifteen years of partnership, Burley and Springer have produced many multimedia and site-specific works across the country, helping them earn numerous titles such as University of Michigan’s 2015 Emerging Artist Alumni Award.
Burley and Springer’s, as well as Craige’s pieces offer new concepts, sights and emotions for the audience to synthesize and admire. Craige’s ethereal wind chime performance moved thoughtfully through time. Dancers Makenna Finch, Chrissy Martin, Em Papineau and Cat Wagner ebbed and spun, grasping each other to only then pull apart. Yellow luminescent lights turned purple and reflected carefully off the shiny tin pipes that hang from the ceiling. Viewers sat contemplatively, leaning forward, as tableaus emerged from the ocean of movement.
In Frame[Work]’s press release, Toni speaks about her piece as, “[asking questions] about the variety of forms that a group can take and proposes states of being together that might respond effectively to our current cultural moment.” Her choreography requires the performers to go beyond movement and explore the medium of sound as harmonious and ghostly humms were integrated towards the last moments of this dance. Whitney Wilson, a senior at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, reflected after the show, “It is a lot to unpack. I almost have no words. It was all so visceral and very evocative of a lot of emotions.”
Later, Act two, “Parts,” begins. It is loud, but still for a second. Annie Lennox’s “No More ‘I Love You’s’” blasts as Burley stands center stage in a reflective turquoise gown. The side curtains are pulled back, showing the scaffolding of backstage machinery. Springer emerges from a staircase here, naked and bold. He saunters across stage to put on underwear and a new pair of socks.
And the rest continued like this; humorous but representative of something conceptually larger than what it seems. Burley and Springer’s well researched and intellectually provocative elements shone brightly as Parts explored elements from speaking, to crawling (sometimes under the stage), to breathing, to thumping (or rather, humping). Burley put a microphone in her underwear and played rhetorical word games with the audience. Springer rolled back and forth and then back and forth all across the black stage floor. Both partners seemed to be in constant motion, managing to push physical and cerebral boundaries in such a nonchalant fashion. At one point, the two moved forward by crawling over each other, slowly with all their weight. The amount of strength and composure they exhibited left the audience hungry for the motion to endlessly repeat. Their intimacy and banter, which stretches beyond the erotic or romantic and even past verbal expression, is something incredibly rare and special. One can only fully experience these moments through sharing the space with these two artists.
