I guess Scott Wells & Dancers really do know what men want….

Wow!  I can honestly say I have never been so turned on by a group of men before.  I don’t mean this in any strictly sexual way, after all I tend to label myself as a straight male, but the essence of these pieces delves so much deeper than the visceral.  It was poetic to see such a strong and raw group of men expose their vulnerabilities so willingly and so passionately.  Scott did an exquisite job of treading the line between celebrating these dancer’s raw masculinity while allowing them to still be graceful and sensual.  That isn’t to say this was on overly heady experience either.  There was a beautiful balance struck between acknowledging the animality of stereotypical masculinity with a reflection of how absurd those stereotypes are.  Scott did a marvelous job of smoothly taking us from a piece that is soft and soulful to one more rugged and comedic with just the right pace and opportunity to digest the subtleties and relationships of the pieces themselves.  The choreography played masterfully with our sense of expectation of these dancers.  The women too helped to play off of these themes through their interaction with the male dancers.  While the female dancers matched the men in their physical abilities, they too brought a deeper sense of what we as the audience were to take away.  As there could be no men without women and vice versa, the pieces served to reflect on this symbiosis and forced us to question the elements of and excetptions to the male stereotype.

I also want to take some space to applaud Elizabeth Mendana on her lighting design of the piece.  I recognize that as the person who hired her I am a bit biased but she did an amazing job of treating each piece and the evening as a whole with the subtlety and dimension that it demanded.  She truly maximized the technical capabilities of the space and presented one of the most effective lighting designs in my tenure at CounterPULSE.  And this all coming from someone who, due to a sold out opening night, had to sit in what could be called at best “obstructed view seating,” better known as our storage loft.  I especially want to comend Elizabeth’s use of shadowplay which completely captured my attention and was treated with the same beauty with which Scott so clearly approached the choreography.

This was a truly powerful experience to be a part of and left me nearly speechless for the better part of the evening.  Scott did a fantastic job of maintaining a clear vision throughout all the aspects of the performance.  It is certainly one of the best shows I have seen at CounterPULSE and, as it has one more weekend left, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you missed it.