It’s hard to imagine the intimacy that goes into a single dance, any dance, until you’ve experienced it. Bodies move, hips tilt, torsos sway and sometimes touch--and that’s only the physical dimension.
Imagine, then the connection that comes from collaborating and choreographing together for more than 30 years. Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer have been doing just that since 1978.
Do the math and you’ll realize that both of them must be at least 50 years old. It might seem kind to say that you can’t see their age when they dance but you can, and they’re the better for it. Anything that isn’t dance has long since shriveled and fallen away from their limber, athletic bodies, leaving the married Guggenheim Fellows with nothing but naked movement and emotion.
Dance doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and on Friday night Bridgman/Packer performed two pieces, 2005’s Under the Skin and 2010’s Double Expose, to clever jazz soundtracks. The sometimes syncopated, unpredictable yet undeniably rhythmic music built a framework for the duet’s well-tensioned, sensual movement style.
Live cameras projected front, back or overhead views of the dancers onto their bodies, clothing and a screen behind them: A man marveling at suddenly possessing a woman’s legs or the woman sprouting four arms. Pulling this off requires such precise timing and positioning, catching and interacting with projections and partner just so, that there’s really no way to describe it. All you can do is hold your breath, marvel, and wonder.
Bridgman/Packer are as much illusionists as dancers, chasing each other, each others’ projections, and their own recorded images both in front of and behind the projection screen, which played equal parts doorway, cityscape and bedroom.
After so many years together, it makes sense for Bridgman/Packer to blend together into a single name, right up there with the Brangelinas and Tomkats of the world. But despite the enduring partnership these dancers seem to have retained their individuality, and it’s the blending of those two beings, and the illusion that leaves you unsure of exactly when the dancers become ghosts in their own work, that made their Friday evening performance such a pleasure.
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