Media-Rich Dance from MJDC and Colleagues

Breathing at the Boundaries seems to have been conceived by choreographer Margaret Jenkins for her Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (MJDC) as a reflection on the lockdown conditions imposed to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Working with visual designer Alexander V. Nichols, she created a one-hour work to present dancers both isolated and “in touch” through either physical presence or “remote contact.” The work was created to be staged with four performing dancers (Dalton Alexander, Crystaldawn Bell, Alex Carrington, and Keely Del Rosario) interacting with four dancers on film (Kristen Bell, Corey Brady, Norma Fong, and Chinchin Hsu). Four performances were planned for the weekend prior to Thanksgiving, but these had to be cancelled as COVID-19 cases continued to rise.

Jenkins then reconceived her work as a “fully cinematic event.” In other words viewers would engage with the performance through a single screen, and the premiere took place last night with that screen provided by YouTube. [updated 12/30, 10:55 a.m.: That performance, which lasts about an hour, has now be uploaded to the MJDC home page, where it will be available for viewing until January 6.]

One of the first instances of engagement between a “projected” dancer and a “physical” one (screen shot from the YouTube video being discussed)

The “dancers on film” were projected onto panels, spaced in such a way that the “physical” dancers could “navigate” among the projected ones. It is to the credit of the entire production team that this highly imaginative balance of the physical and the virtual could be fully appreciated, even when all of the content was itself projected onto a single “YouTube screen.” Indeed, the interactions, both “between” and “among,” were so rich in choreographic vocabulary that it would be impossible to appreciate the full extent of Jenkins’ creation from a single viewing.

The music for Breathing at the Boundaries was composed by Paul Dresher, working in conjunction with Joel Davel. Dresher and Davel have been performing as a duo for some time, and they were also the primary performers for Breathing at the Boundaries. However, there were also contributions (most likely virtual) from cellist Ashley Bathgate, pianist Lisa Moore, and Marja Mutru on electronic keyboard. Dresher and Davel appeared to be playing “live” with the dancers, and images of them in performance were occasionally interleaved with those of the dancers.

The other major contributor was Rinde Eckert, reciting a text, presumably of his own composition. It is through that text that one cultivates some appreciation of Jenkins’ choice of title. Nevertheless, while Eckert’s delivery was clear and accessible, the content was so rich and so much in need of reflection that it was difficult to keep up with him. For the most part those recitations were solo performances, presumably chosen to set context for the choreography. However, given how much was unfolding over the course of this one-hour performance, I confess that I shall have to return to the YouTube video before establishing any conjectures regarding the relations between words and music!

That said, I look forward to setting aside time to experience Breathing at the Boundaries a second time, probably also anticipating a third one!