OFF CENTER
New Works by Renee Beauvais
TILT Contemporary Dance Company
By Paul Janes-Brown , Independent Reviewer

Like Mark Morris, Renee Beauvais recognizes the symbiotic and essential relationship between live music and dance. However, where Morris uses live music as accompaniment, Beauvais, in the extraordinary, "Night in Amsterdam" actually creates a pas de deux where, Kevin Schempf playing the bass clarinet is one half of the duet.

It's not hyperbole to say this work is revolutionary. Laura Tenbrink, in her second year with TILT performs one of the most sensuous ballets one may ever see. She does it with an iridescent hula-hoop, metallic tutu, Technicolor mop-top wig and Schempf's musicianship on the bass clarinet. They never touch! Yet, the air virtually crackles with seductive sparks.

The presence of the musician creates a relationship between the dancer and the music that causes the aural to become visual and the visual to become aural. The only other time this has been done to my knowledge was in Anthony Braxton's 1996 opera "Tillium R…Shala Fears for the Poor."

In the opera, Braxton had musicians improvise commentary on the action and the arias. The musicians were in costume on stage and were in addition to the pit orchestra, which accompanied the singers. It had a layering effect to the opus, compounding the stimuli transmitted to the audience.

In "Amsterdam", the rapport between the musician and the dancer was purely emotional. The only thing that might equate to what Beauvais, Schempf and Tenbrink created might be a cobra and a snake charmer.

Beauvais has put together an exceptional company of dancers, especially Joshua Dean, whose aerial choreography coupled with Beauvais' floor work moves the form pioneered by "Cirque du Soleil" out of the circus and into dance. Dean's relationship with David Cutler's music and the Tri Facto Ensemble is both thrilling and emotionally engaging.

Dean also provided a jolt of energy to the proceedings in "Plays Well with Others," an interesting improvisational exploration, which has great potential, but needs to be further developed. One of the things about improvisation, be it musical, theatrical or dance, it requires virtuosity first. The greatest improvisers are those who have thoroughly explored and mastered the formal aspects of their art and have found the need and the ability to go beyond into the dangerous and exciting realm of spontaneous creation.