Shirley Mordine explores the emotional connections forged between individuals in times of crisis in "Quest," Mordine and Company's new evening-length work. The piece is loosely inspired by Jose Saramago's The Stone Raft, a novel about an earthquake that mysteriously severs the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe. Mordine mentions recent cataclysms like Hurricane Katrina when talking about the piece, and stormy elements resonate through the first section: outlined projections of the dancers on the back wall flicker in concert with dim, dappled lighting and Alison Chesley's darkly lush cello and drum composition. The dancers are flung about as though by the elements surrounding them, creating an atmosphere of poetic chaos.
The second section departs from the original theme, and here the impetus becomes a bit vague—brighter lighting and costuming set a major shift in tone, but the kinesis and emotion of the choreography remain relatively constant. It may be that the attentive process of the company ("Quest" is two years in the making) rounded out all the raw, daring edges that make work like this compelling. Still, Mordine is at her best with sections of contrapuntal, full-cast movement, mimicked and enriched by Chesley's live loop pedal score.
John Boesche's projection design reappears as a central character in the third section, acting as set piece and backdrop, and pointing to the themes most on Mordine's mind: the earth from afar, the effect it we wreak upon it, our place in the universe beyond. The dancers now develop more agency in the torrent, the aggression of their movements resurging. At one point, the group stomps in unison, perhaps causing the continents projected on the floor to crackle with lightning and drift back into Pangaea. It is an epic piece, at times electrifying, at times ill-defined, as many all-inclusive works tend to be.
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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