Probably anyone who has ever written a poem about nature knows how likely it is that the piece may be mistead or even dismissed by an unreceptive reader; the subject is as old as anything you could name. The opportunity to say something new or relevant, or to affect the reader in a fresh way, must be seized with courage.

But we are in such good hands with Hilary Easton. An old friend of mine once explained why he listened to Ella Fitzgerald more than any other musician. It wasn’t just that there were so many surprising choices made by Ella – even after repeated listening - and special moments to be heard that were delicious every time. He felt that Ella was the only singer that he could really trust. Of course, Ella Fitzgerald is known for being pitch-perfect and possessing an uncanny sense of rhythm. But he was referring to something else, I think, and that was the marriage of serious intellect with joyful purpose, that made all of Ella’s choices seem just as inevitable as they may have been initially and momentarily surprising. Ms. Easton similarly never fails to delight and to deliver.

“The Reclamation” is both a humble work, without elaborate staging and the sort of lighting and sound tricks that are sometimes used to plump-up a production, and a boldly ambitious one, daring to leave the vast desert of current personal/political/ psycho-sexual contemporary dance-think and re-enter the dark woods of old questions, including the very hoary one involving our strained relationship with this planet.

The visual simplicity of the stage makes plain that the invitation to the audience to bring themselves to the work - to look carefully, to listen, and especially to think – is sincere and insistent. The choreography itself is compelling throughout. At the very beginning, when the dancers appear to move in ways that trees move, one is also aware that the language of the movement is highly evolved, a continuation of the formal conversation that Ms. Easton has been having with us for some time now. The distance between the figurative nature of the choreography and the abstract dance language also provided room for this viewer to re-focus his attention to the dancers’ limbs and contemplate for a moment on the very fragility, vulnerability, and beauty of those lovely limbs.

Aren’t all dance performances working on many levels, visceral and cerebral, physical and meta-physical, employing high and low language, inviting one in to find a place for the self in the conversation? If only that were so! “Reclamation” is least-of-all the sort of schematic, if high-concept, piece that one sees so often nowadays. It is full-bodied, fully engaged and engaging, and fulsomely satisfying to watch.

The dancers are consistently marvelous. One becomes aware early-on that there is little or no repetition to the piece, that it is restless and relentless – an expression of Evolution itself. The dancers clearly share Ms. Easton’s commitment to relating the ideas inherent in the work and state those ideas with grace, strength, and determination. The obvious fact that the dancers actually ARE Nature, so potentially trite, is carried off by their commitment to this fine material and by the fabulous discipline that they and Ms. Easton bring to the stage.

The struggle continues. And certainly, the inevitable reclamation of the world by nature itself, and not any new claims by us humanfolk to either restore or re-take any part of the wild, is powerfully and movingly presented in this original work of art.

Steven Keith

Steven Keith is an architect who looks for lessons-to-be-learned from wherever they may be found -- film, dance, painting, sculpture, music et al.  
stevenkeithra@gmail.com

BACK TO THE RECLAMATION REVIEWS