Choreographer Kelly Radermacher’s “SlapDash” defies simple categorization. The choreography is neither modern nor post-modern; it’s driven by feeling- or concept-induced impulses that manifest in thrashing, tossing and kicking movements topped with faces of disaffected irony and indifferent affront.
Such choreography infuses Radermacher’s own compelling solos; it’s part of her films, in which movement performed in front of fuse boxes or an abandoned gas station are edited to be stuttery and mysterious; it’s what Amy Radermacher does during her five iterations of “SuGar,” a series of plant-obsessed, mad-scientist solos performed to music by Lindstrom and Christabelle, which pepper the performance with additional zaniness.
Energy — biologic, electric, petroleum, kinetic — is a recurring theme. Potted plants are constantly shifted around the space. A gang of women is dressed in skirts, shorts and tops the color of newly unfurled spring leaves—that bright, lime-green — and they crawl through the space like tendrils of kudzu.
The inclusion of BodyTalk, Rebecca Abas and Gerry Girouard, in an improvised trio with Kelly Radermacher, is a lovely if odd choice: Their flashing legs intertwine with casual ease as Abas heartily chomps on her gum. But maybe that’s a deliberate move. In the “SuGar” that follows, Amy Radermacher chomps on dirt.
Repetition, thus, is also a recurring idea. Plants, plastic tables, music, a fork, film footage, gestures all reappear throughout the work — on screen and on stage — bring the work to tangible fruition as the spring-green dancers wind across the stage in powerful, unison movement.
“SlapDash,” Fringe Festival, Ritz Theater Proscenium: 5:30 p.m. Saturday, 10 p.m. Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. next Friday and 7 p.m. Aug. 15.
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