Virago-Man Dem, a production performed by the COCo. Dance Theatre, was performed live at The Dance Center in Columbia College at Chicago and made available through Vimeo.
Written by Willa Wu
The composer of this production, Jason Finelman, sought to explore the complexities of black masculinity through the expression of dance. Throughout this production, he adopted a relatively quiet and mysterious style to dancing.
The production begins extremely calm. Four dancers, dressed in all white, come slowly on stage and simply stand there for a prolonged period of time, only to move slowly at the eleven minute mark. All of the dancers on stage had similar dancing styles, but they always seemed to move uniquely rather than in sync. The background slowly turns into a slideshow filled with the faces of black men. Very rarely have I seen dancers make noise during a dance production (perhaps because I have not been to very many), but the dancers made noise in this one (full sentences), to aid the story they wanted to tell.
The mostly calm but sometimes erratic movements made by the dancers added to the mysterious style of the director. The uniqueness of each dancer allowed for the audience to recognize the individuality of each person, and yet still recognize the group itself, because many of the dance moves were very similar. The times where the group did move in sync were made more special because it did not happen very often.
The element of design within this production was phenomenal. The director used a very easy to understand minimalistic set to progress the story very effectively. My favorite aspect of the background was the use of shadows in the backdrop. With small tweaks in lighting, the actors themselves can look like shadows or the actors can create large shadows behind them. This can be used to have the actor appear either extremely large or extremely small in comparison to some other object or another actor. The actors all wore monochromatic clothing, and hence, with the shadows they create, make the entire play fit in further with the minimalistic look. This was broken at some points, however, such as when a dancer with a Bulls jersey and a sparkly suit jacket came out to upbeat music. This showed the clash between masculinity and the black community.
It was not imperative that this production was to be watched online, as it was recorded in English. However, if I were to somehow be able to watch this in person, I would much rather do so. Because I have to rely on the cameraman's angle (which is in the far back), it was hard at times to hear what the dancer was speaking. In my opinion, the experience of watching it online feels more rigid rather than watching it live. The constant zooming in of the camera inhibited me from looking at what the other dancers were doing at the same time, which may have taken a bit of the experience away.
My favorite design element is the use of big bubbly neon green letters on the backdrop to emphasize a word, oftentimes 'HEY' or 'WHAT'. Not only does this choice in color and font choice starkly contrast the blue and white theme of the dance, but it draws the audience's attention immediately to the backdrop and the words on it. It is a very effective tool to capture the audience's attention, which I believe that they used to its fullest potential.