Work Performance: Jill Johnson’s “The Copier” for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (Dancer Magazine)

by Mary Staub — Oct 14, 2008 (Dancer Magazine) 

Humanity is brought center stage in Jill Johnson’s dance installation “The Copier” performed by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in New York this August. During the 40-minute event, Cedar Lake dancers gently glide from preparatory warm-up into full-out performance, and in so doing, blur the boundaries between intuition and intention, individuality and conformity.

When you first walk into Cedar Lake’s warehouse-style theatre, it is unclear whether “The Copier” has already begun. Exposed brick walls, visible lighting structures overhead and an absence of spectator seating give the event a no-frills feel. The sense of storeroom starkness is further enhanced by the constant electronic whirr of a computer, copier or maybe a shredder. This industrial drone subtly switches to birdsong and city sounds throughout David Poe’s richly varied musical score.

Fifteen dancers distractedly stretch, roll their shoulders and mark simple steps on a t-shaped, curb-high platform in the center of the room. Dressed in fancified training gear – women in short shorts and lacy tops, men in colorfully clashing shirt-pant-and-sock combos – they might be rehearsing and making sure they remember their moves; or, this may be part of the show.

But within minutes, 15 individual stories begin to captivate and intrigue, and whether it’s preparation or performance ceases to matter. One man sits on the ground, legs stretched nimbly before him, and gently massages his calves and purple-socked feet. With increasing vigor, as arms, torso, shoulders and head become part of the story, this preliminary rubdown gives way to full-bodied narrative.

Cedar Lake dancers, Nickemil Conception, Acacia Schachte and Oscar Ramos
Photo by Julieta Cervantes

Throughout the room, individuals tentatively tell movement tales that build into life stories. In the opposite corner, a pedestrian woman extends a leg, reaching farther and farther, as though trying to overstep a gigantic puddle of water. Eventually she jumps, turns, and jumps again, her body coiling as though trying to circumvent a pillar.

Like people on a busy market square, sometimes these stories intersect. When one woman glances up from her own absorbed day, she catches the eye of a passerby. Tentatively a conversation develops wherein movements are mimicked and experiences are mirrored.

“By choice, force, or design, we copy others every day;” Johnson comments in program notes. “We stand in lines, forward e-mail, repeat overheard slang and opinions and follow trends. But of course we are all individuals and as such are inherently different from each other even when we do the same thing.”

On Johnson’s market square, or city sidewalk, occasionally everyone falls into step. Like a military regiment, they march forward, backward, halt and start again. But when two women start to break rank, others slowly follow suit, and again separate stories subtly ensue.

Throughout “The Copier” dancers repeatedly break the boundary between performance space and audience. They dash through the crowd to rest against walls, leaving just single stories as the central focus. Although we’re told – again in program notes – that dancers and audience will share the same sphere, and that the audience is encouraged to move through the room, this rarely occurs. The set-up, with all movement center stage, creates little incentive to change one’s perspective, and only outside the boundaries of the platform stage in our sphere could any sharing of stories truly take place.

Cedar Lake’s dancers transform contorted twists, body ripples, distant gazes and quiet stances into human stories. They alternate between individual absorption and interaction with others. If spectators truly became part of their sphere, they might experience the dance within everyday life, and the force to fit in, more acutely. But perhaps that’s not needed, because as it stands, Johnson’s “The Copier” already presses us to recognize the rhythm and ritual of our own daily lives.