SAN DIEGO COUNTY : DANCE REVIEW : ‘Alphabet’ Translates Into Noble Failure

After 10 years on the front lines of performance art, Sushi is still ferreting out the new and different.

“From the Alphabet of Bones,” the first of seven dance-oriented events included in Sushi’s multi-faceted 10th anniversary season, illustrates that search. In this serious study of parallel languages, which premiered at Sushi’s second-story loft space Thursday night, even the basic alphabet is unique.

The birth of cutting-edge artworks can be painful and there is no guarantee that the entire concept will work, or that individual elements will meld into a unified whole. “From the Alphabet of Bones” is a noble failure, a project that strives for brave new worlds but suffers from its own esoteric pursuits and diversity of spirit.

Translating textual or visual material into movement and voice is not new. But visual artist Joyce Cutler-Shaw, choreographer Nancy Karp, and composer Chaya Czernowin definitely moved into uncharted territory when they attempted to find equivalents to Cutler-Shaw’s calligraphy (a symbolic language based on the fragile skeletal structure of birds) in music and dance.

Their common purpose apparently was to call attention to environmental concerns. Cutler-Shaw’s bird imagery, seen as light projections on the floor and backdrop, was selected as the metaphor.

However, instead of integrating the individual elements and creating some sort of coherent entity, the artists offered their individual voices as a string of disparate parts. The effect was a baffling whole that seemed to have been assembled with scissors and paste pot.

The sequence began with a dance version of the bone alphabet, then evolved into a spoken text written and recited by Cutler-Shaw. It culminated in the disembodied sound structures created and sung by the composer.

According to the program notes, “the sequence from A to Z represents a journey and reads as a visual dance.” But that journey was long, labored, disjointed and often incoherent.

The fascinating bird imagery that inspired the three-way collaboration failed to achieve its potential of providing strong visual support. Although the artist lined the back wall of the theater with an ominous assortment of caged birds, the stage was bare. And the projections on the floor and backdrop never revealed the power of some of the artist’s original work.

In contrast, the spoken and sung texts were too protracted and visually unexciting to be theatrically viable by themselves. Cutler-Shaw’s poetic recitation of the story of evolution and her impassioned evocation of “unspeakable acts” (a joint reference to the Holocaust and the destruction of wildlife) were moving but isolated from the rest of the performance.

Also isolated were Czernowin’s primordial wails and hisses, an often heart-wrenching vocabulary of wordless sounds that recalled the ear-piercing sonic structures of post-modern pioneer Meredith Monk.

Monk suggests that the voice is a tool for activating, remembering and discovering “pre-logical consciousness.” Czernowin used her voice to achieve this effect, but the musical portion was oppressively long and visually static. Perhaps that was part of its message, but an active visual or kinetic thrust was sorely needed.

Karp, a San Francisco-based choreographer, communicated the bone alphabet first as a solo dance for herself and later as a duet for Deirdre Carrigan and Diane McKallip. If Karp and her dancers were interpreting an alphabet, it was not obvious. The rhythmic flow of interesting abstractions suggested, but never mimicked, the movement of birds.

The dance was lyrical--the lightest element in a dark work--ending with a painful plea for survival. The environmental sounds by Bill Fontana that accompanied both dance episodes were another plus.

Eventually these three talented artists may be able to use their newly created alphabets to explore the theme of survival with more theatricality. For now, however, “From the Alphabet of Bones” is a flightless bird waiting for a chance to soar.

The performance will repeat at Sushi Performance Gallery at 8 o’clock tonight and Sunday.