‘ Ghost’ playfully provocative
Cal Performances, it would seem, is going experimental on us, and the gesture couldn’t be more overdue. With the local premiere of Trajal Harrell’s weird and whimsical performance piece,“The Ghost of Montpellier Meets the Samurai” Friday, March 18, at Zellerbach Playhouse, the veteran dance presenter has brought an unusually provocative, contemporary artist into the spotlight, and one can only hope for more.
Harrell, an American residing abroad, deals, it would seem, with traditions. The
title of the 2015 work references two dance legends, the Frenchman Dominique Bagouet ( creator of the New Dance of the 1980s) and Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of the austere Japanese movement form known as butoh. The 90- minute work imagines that the pair conceived a collaborative dance ( it would be banal to call it a mashup), which this seven- member crew will reconstruct for us.
It takes a while to get there, but the setup is both perplexing and pleasurable. First, Harrell informs us that we will not see the announced piece, but something called “Caen Amour.” Then, veteran company dancer Thibault Lac performs as Trajal Harrell, while the real Harrell in the audience clarifies the circumstances of the BagouetHijikata encounter ( it happened, not in Paris but in a gay bar in Greenwich Village, and it also involved LaMama’s Ellen Stewart).
Disorienting effect
Dancers wander through, humming in counterpoint. Stephen Thompson totes in a pile of objects, which he proceeds to raffle off. Such interjections ( and they include a debate on the comparative talents of actors Fanny Ardant and Catherine Deneuve) keep us from the end of the story, and the disorienting effect is deliberate.
Finally, the lights go dim. At a modest table, dancers smear their colleagues’ faces with the standard white makeup of butoh. What we see is a procession of dancers voguing and gesticulating their way through the performance space ( Harrell moves through the audience.) The costuming veers to runway black, then to drag, with Harrell finally settling for a multicolored skirt. Arms constantly propel the dancers.
Convincing skeptics
What strikes you is how little the choreography resembles either of the movement styles of the supposed models. And that seems the point of the piece. We create our own traditions. Harrell is the choreographer who made voguing relatively respectable in the dance world, and he goes at it with such joy that skepticism evolves into belief. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Lac steps to the mike and delivers a hilariously self- pitying monologue.
One senses a trajectory in the piece. Solitary processions evolve into duets; and when dancers touch, it seems a milestone. The uncredited musical score is all French chansons, and it all happens within the skimpiest of decors. “The Ghost of Montpellier” seems to break down performative barriers. Even the bows, with their dress- up antics, suggest there’s more to come.
The other principals Friday were Camille Durif Bonis, Perle Palombe, Christina Vassiliou and Ondrej Vidlar. After an hour and a half, you feel you know them intimately.