Impossible to work

I am excited about this weekend’s LinkUp Performances at Links Hall. This round of artists: Ayako Kato, Margaret Morris, and Brian Torrey Scott & Mary Walling Blackburn (who I believe was involved in Links Hall’s Driveby Performance series last fall) have some good work to show for the creative time they’ve had these past few months, and you would be silly not to want to come to one of the performances this weekend (Friday-Sunday at 7PM). You can learn more about the show from Sarah and more about Ayako Kato and Margaret Morris in the dance section of this week’s Time Out Chicago.

While I think each artist in the showcase is talented, I really fell in love with the short burst of Margaret Morris’s work that I saw about a month ago, and am looking forward to seeing her and her dancers perform this weekend. I was surprised by how much I liked the work because, usually, I don’t like anything. Even things I generally think of as good are subject to tedious lists of “things I didn’t like.” I am a picky audience member. Picky and grouchy. Really grouchy. But I like Margaret Morris’s new dance “In Tongues,” or at least the brief glimpse I got of it in February.

As I recall, first one woman is paralyzed by an ecstasy in the corner, then, slowly, other women entered and were also overcome. Certain places appeared to be charged with a greater amount of energy than others. Dancers fell into and out of unison, sped up, slowed down, fell down, got up. It felt, good isn’t the right word, perhaps envigorating is, to watch. I’m not saying it was perfect, but I liked it. Obviously, I am looking forward to seeing more of this dance at Links this weekend.

I have a particular affinity for the sort of choreography that Ms. Morris has created for the piece, and were I more adept at describing dance, I would probably be able to tell you why. Part of it is the subject matter. Having known a few people growing up who regularly (thought that they) were taken by ecstasies (talking in tongues and all), I find it very interesting to see this sort of movement used in a dance. The few minutes of the piece I saw back in February made me think again about the idea of being taken by the spirit. These movements are not supposed to be based in religious fanaticism but a natural connection between body and [the] spirit. I think there is something of that in this dance, and am interested in seeing where the choreography takes it.

It’s strange to see movements that you have traditionally filed under “negative connotations” put into a new context. Strange, but good in this case.