Zombies crave brains, ransack shopping malls and groan with gusto, but they aren't exactly known for their killer dance moves, the one exception being the living dead chorus in a certain epic Michael Jackson video. "Grave Matters," choreographer James Sewell's take on the zombie shuffle, could easily have wound up as "Thriller"-lite, yet this Halloween romp actually has a lot of life to it. And don't worry, only a couple of the flesh-eaters escape into the audience.
Dancers Nicky Coehlo, Leah Gallas, Cory Goei, Chris Hannon, Nic Lincoln and Eve Schulte look the part with wild hair, vacant eyes, decaying skin and ragged clothing. At first the music (G. Prokofiev, remixes by DJ Yoda and Jules Buckley) perplexes them, but the motley crew eventually work it out in their own twitchy, stiff-limbed, head-lolling kind of way. Sally Rousse is the unlucky mortal who teaches the rhythm-starved zombies some fresh new moves.
Sewell often isn't subtle with his use of humor, but he strikes the right balance in "Grave Matters" by showing how dance can mine the horror genre for laughs as well as the occasional darker sentiment. Interestingly, over the course of the piece the sense of playfulness becomes tinged with melancholy. It seems these grisly creatures mourn their lost humanity.
Less successful is a riff on the "Black Swan Pas de Deux," an inevitable work, perhaps, given the success of the recent Darren Aronofsky film. Sewell focuses on the psychological push-and-pull Siegfried (Hannon) experiences in his desire for the black swan (Gallas) and the white (Schulte). But the twisted ins-and-outs of the relationships are rendered too tentatively, so the inside jokes fall flat. Perhaps it's best to avoid both serious and irreverent versions of this particular ballet until the memory of Natalie Portman's extreme performance fades from pop-culture consciousness.
"Mendelssohn Trio," a lively piece from 1999, stands out for Rousse's elegant and angular solo section, not to mention the spirited accompaniment of musicians Jihye Chang (piano), Laura Sewell (cello) and Benjamin Sung (violin). And "Social Movements - Equality" is a simple yet effective meditation on historic cycles in the advancement of human rights, particularly timely given Minnesota's upcoming constitutional amendment vote on same-sex marriage. With this piece Sewell quietly makes the point that the heart knows no boundaries.
Caroline Palmer writes regularly about dance.
