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Sarah Aezer
Schaub
DANC 1100
4/19/19

Dance Concert Analysis

The concert that I attended was ​About Time ​by SALT Contemporary Dance. The show

takes place at the Marriott Center For Dance at the University of Utah. The show I’m seeing is a

small event, meant for viewing by high school students (with a few ‘other’ audience members as

well). It is an early show, and contains only pieces performed by SALT. At the top of the show,

artistic director Michelle Nielson takes the stage to speak on the experience of viewing

contemporary dance. She states something along the lines of how contemporary dance is for

everyone. It is a space for vulnerability, for taking your walls down, and for connecting your own

experiences to the pictures you see on stage. She invites us to enjoy the show and look for

parallels of our lives in the work. I find that throughout this SALT show, I’m feeling both

overwhelmed and underwhelmed with emotion and connection.

The first piece is choreographed by Joni McDonald and is titled, ​After Discussing.​ This

piece consists of five dancers, and throughout it, they fluctuate from duets, to trios, to five

dancers, to soloists. The dancers are costumed in simple black pants and white tank tops. The

stage has black wings, a black scrim, and dimmed white lighting throughout. The music

accompanying the piece is repetitive and intense. It has an electronic feel to it, and the overall

tone it brings to the piece is serious. The movement, through the beginning, matches this

intense, serious vibe. Much of the dancing is interwoven partnering, with much weight sharing.

Its fluid, yet heavy and grounded. There is a motif throughout the partnering of rocking back and

forth, almost as if to build momentum which spurs the following movements. The dancers are
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not projecting out to the audience with emotion or with performance. The piece is very

introspective. They do not make eye contact with one another either. The transitions on and off

the stage are seamless and hidden, and dancers almost seem to just appear and disappear

without the audience’s knowledge. Near the end of the piece, a musical change takes place,

and the lights begin to lift the picture out of the shadows. The dancers, one-by-one find a

stillness in their own particular pose, scattered throughout the stage. Still, the lights are

brightening. The movement also becomes lighter, faster, and less bound. It eventually trickles

down to one male dancer performing a solo throughout the other posed dancers and the lights

are starkly bright. It seems to signify to me that there is a release. It’s almost as if something has

been shed and that a weight has been lifted. I was feeling a little lost in the message of the

piece until the last few minutes of it. I didn’t grasp what the seriousness was or why it was shed.

In my opinion, it took an exorbitant amount of time to connect to an idea. I felt it wandered for ⅔

of the piece. I did, however, enjoy the strong statement made at the end of the piece.

The show is organized in separate vignettes, and so the following piece is not related to

the first. Its choreographed by Nicholas Palmquist and is titled ​Bloodless.​ The stage is bathed in

a warm, pink glow. There is a single, orange mid-century armchair on stage, accompanied by a

floor lamp. Four dancers are on stage. Two of them are in casual, pedestrian clothes (boots,

flannel shirt, a pair of pajamas, hair down), the other two are dressed all in black. The music is

Bloodless by Andrew Bird. It’s a heavily layered song, with use of light jazz drumming, singing,

whistling, strings, and piano. The feeling of it is relaxed and groovy, but with an underlying sad

vibe. Nicholas Palmquist’s choreography is incredibly musical. With quick, loose, lofty, and

playful movements, the dancers seem to mimic every instrument layered in the song. The two

dancers in the pedestrian costumes engage in a duet, which seems to be about a disagreement

of sorts. The movement is heavily based in acting and gestures. The two other dancers on
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stage seem to represent the emotional states of either dancer. It is almost a story of what is

being said, versus what is being thought/felt. The piece transitions into a separate duet (with two

other dancers representing their feelings), but this time the duet is flirtatious and seductive. As

the feeling of the duet changed, it’s interesting how my perception of the music changes from

sadness to flirtation without any difference in the song. The two narratives don’t resolve, we

instead feel as though we just glanced into a window of their lives for just a moment in time.

This piece is a welcome change within the show. Palmquist is a very large step out of SALT’s

comfort zone. He’s primarily a musical theatre choreographer, so his type of vision and

movement provides variety in the show.

The art (especially dance) that I seem to enjoy the most is always simple. I enjoy

exploring my emotions one at a time. Movement that has clarity in its message and in its

delivery speaks to me. With SALT’s ​About Time​, I found myself fluctuating through awe and

frustration. The company is full of technically strong dancers with a beautiful movement quality.

However, I often felt that the only thing being shown was beautiful movement. There is a

disconnection with sentiment and the core statement of each movement. Much of it seems

superfluous. I occasionally was struck by the dancers’ emotional connection and I felt moved. In

one piece, by Peggy Saunders called ‘Forget Me Not,’ there was a duet with a man and woman

which represented parents looking at their kids’ fleeting childhood and wanting to stop time. The

dancers showed such wistful longing. Their duet contained moments showing their own

heaviness or lightness toward the memory, and also an intertwined and dependent partnership

of holding each other up. It was set to the most beautiful cello music, and brought me to tears

with its ability to convey the feeling of two people trying to preserve time together. I thought it

was absolutely brilliant. My love of these moments almost intensifies my frustration in the

moments that feel excess. It seems that a great portion of the work is “just cool moves” and
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either needs to be explored on a deeper level, or omitted. I left this concert feeling torn in my

opinion. There were moments in which I felt uninvited and unspoken to as an audience member,

and there were moments in which I felt profoundly affected.