An Inconvenient Truth
Maguy Marin’s Umwelt is a distressingly powerful summation of the world in which we’re currently living, especially the one geographically bound by the waters of Hurricane Katrina, the bomb-mangled markets of Bazra, the cyclone in Myanmar, the collapsed mountains, buildings and crushed limbs of the people of the Sichuan Province, China. A howling wind blows throughout 60 minutes as nine dancers, hair and clothing at ninety degree angles, their bodies pushing against currents of air, race from left to right through static corridor made up of vertical panels. Partially mirrored, and functioning both as door frame and street architecture, the set keeps the performers regimented in their daily grind, as they act out a series of everyday moves, over and over, as we do, every day.
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