Hybrid form of art unfolds in ‘Origami’
It was being advertised as a duet between machine and dancer. But “Origami,” a featured event at the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, was so much more than that.
On the surface, Compagnie Furinkaï’s Satchie Noro tread lightly and hung tenaciously onto a 40-foot shipping container that resembled a giant moving jigsaw puzzle at the Mon Wharf Amphitheater (just follow the banner and lighted pillars to the left past the underpass at Point State Park).
Shipping containers the size of “Origami” are the best way to transport heavy machinery and hazardous materials. They can be repurposed, mostly in a modular way, for homes, offices, schools, gardens, swimming pools or an art gallery.
But a performance space? Particularly one that changes shape? Hence this bright red container that housed (we thought) but a single human, in this instance a fearless woman who embraced the slowly moving parts beneath her.
You might call it a hybrid form of performing art. There was a circus technique involved but more like Cirque du Soleil, with a conscious effort at producing a work that revealed shape and pattern in transition between tricks. Some might call it a dance meditation,
as Noro evolved little by little during the 30-minute work. Others could see rock climbing as she found steps and hand holds that were not apparent at first.
While Noro never went for obvious trickery and did not use more traditional dance work, only using rolling “floor” work atop the moving container parts near the end, the audience nonetheless appreciated her periodic lovely poses along the way and rewarded the performer with enthusiastic applause several times.
But there were additional things to consider. Evidently there are two males hidden in the container, so important and using carefully timed turns of a wheel to coordinate the performance of the container. And the ambient score by French composer Fred Costa, mostly industrial sounds so suitable to Pittsburgh’s history, embraced it all, particularly when a train passed by on the South Side.
It was important for viewers to encompass the whole experience — the Mount Washington/Fort Pitt Bridge/Monongahela River with its curious river traffic — to appreciate the performance. We saw it in 2017 with The Blanket’s minimalistic Lucinda Childs project.
“Origami” only reinforced that initial impression. And hopefully TRAF will continue to utilize this important outdoor performing space in the future. ‘Origami’ repeats at 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Mon Wharf Amphitheater (along the Monongahela River side of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail) in Point State Park, Downtown. It’s free to the public as part of the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival. Information: trustarts.org/TRAF.