Chicago Tribune

Dance Review

Monday, October 22, 2007

Thodos pays tribute to modern Greek tragedy

By Lucia Mauro

Special to Tribune

     In a program that interlaced quiet reflection with extroverted aplomb, Thodos Dance Chicago's weekend engagement at the Athenaeum Theatre carried audiences across a wave of unexpected colors and moods.  Quite literally, resident lighting designer Nathan Tomlinson evoked the ever-changing hues of grief, flirtation and resilience.  The elements converged in a concert of distinguished artistic voices playing with the limitless possibilities of movement.

     Artistic Director Melissa Thodos premiered "Anasa" a sextet for women graciously contemplating the Phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes nature of tragedy.  Inspired by Thodos' Greek heritage and dedicated to the victims of the recent forest fires in Greece, "Anasa" referenced ancient mythology without restricting itself to Mt. Olympus.

     The women opened with rowing-like thrust movements as they partnered wooden folding chairs they later plucked like lyres.

     The most softly arresting company premiere was Lucas Crandall's Bach-set "Lullaby."   As proven in his choreography for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Crandall's creativity rests in a Romantic sylvan dream emboldened by wry contemporary accents.  Through Crandall's keen eye for theatricality and painterly perspective, "Lullaby" enveloped five dancers in a strange Baroque ether.

     A compact yet otherworldly Jessica Miller Tomlinson, in a long gossamer skirt that took on a life of its own, transferred her fantasies onto two sets of partners nudgung, flitting, starting and stopping across a de-nuded ballroom.  Each gesture was a poem to impish gentility.  When Miller Tomlinson settled into a chair, she appeared the center-piece of a fresco flanked by two sleeping angels (Hilliary Murphy and Kelsey Yates) in  Restoration-era drawing room.

     The evening included a judicious sampling of original pieces by ensemble members, such as Miller Tomlinson's "Forget What You Came For?" a visual body-percussive exercise in tormented voyeurism.  A watcher seated on a trunk moved closer to the other dancers against a blur of muscularly cut bodies.  Brock Clawson's "Falling Out"  also delved into rich psychological territory, with an unseen force - both menacing and empowering - driving the dancers.

ctc-tempo@tribune.com