Choreographer Ring Proves to Be an All-’Weather’ Force

Talk about entrances! With the slightest fluttering of fingers and exquisitely controlled, backward somersaults, dancer-choreographer Melinda Ring made her way down the center aisle of Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica on Sunday night.

Wearing tight black jeans and a skinny black top, the pliant Ring landed in a circle of light, balancing on neck and shoulders, feet pointed skyward, before shedding shoes and pants like a snake. Welcome to “Weather Condition Dances,” Ring’s gripping, daring collection of three solos--all beautifully lit by Jerry Browning--and serendipitously presented, to a packed house, on an evening in which weather was on everyone’s mind.

In this case though, weather is less reality than abstract force or metaphor. In “Dense Fog,” Ring’s 30-minute meditation on confusion, she morphed from somersaulting hipster into yapping dog, finally yanking off her shirt and growling, as if in a tug of war with herself. With no inhibitions, presumptions or airs, Ring was absolutely free in her body, occasionally shielded by her long dark hair; the only sound in the room was her breathing.

“Long Rain” could be part of the “Got Milk?” ad campaign. Knansie Sandercock, seated naked on a pail, slowly poured the white stuff into a glass before dripping it onto herself, mouth agape. She then drew the curtain as a writhing, hip-shimmying, slip-clad Ring, moving to the melody of more drips and splashes, in a taped music collage, presented a series of bent-knee and raised-leg stances, before running in an ever-decreasing circle.

“Glare” had a drummer character, Rincy Samucake (Sandercock), banging on her instrument ferociously before Ring appears, naked, like a Giacometti sculpture suddenly come to life: Jostled by the sound, unable to resist it, Ring butts up against the gridlock of our minds, her arms and legs responding to the percussive jolts with aching beauty. This is a singular performer whose transcendent vision--much like the weather--is inescapable.