Dance review
FOLK-S_will you still love me tomorrow?
Presented by Alessandro Sciarroni. At: Institute of Contemporary Art, Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater, Friday Feb. 17. Remaining performance: Feb. 18. Tickets $15-$25, 617-478-3103, www.icaboston.org
“FOLK-S_will you still love me tomorrow?’’ is the evening-length work that Alessandro Sciarroni and his dancers brought to the Institute of Contemporary Art Friday, and the question it asks is not rhetorical. As a dancer explains some 15 minutes into the piece, “FOLK-S’’ is designed to last till there’s just one performer left on stage, or one audience member left in the seats. You’re free to leave at any time, but there’s no coming back; the same is true for the performers. It could have been a marathon at the ICA, but when the last two dancers threw in the towel after 90 minutes, a good 90 percent of the audience was still in place.
Sciarroni is a theater director, performance artist, and choreographer whose repertoire includes “If I was Madonna,’’ “If I was your girlfriend,’’ and “UNTITLED_I will be there when you die.’’ “FOLK-S’’ draws on the thigh-and-foot-slapping Schuhplattler dances of Bavaria and the Tyrol, in combinations that can go on indefinitely, or at least until the six dancers exhaust themselves.
When the audience was allowed into the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater Friday, at about 8:10, the dancers were already in place on the darkened stage, stomping in unison. They wore tops and shorts, except for Sciarroni, who sported lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat. Early on, he came out alone and did a slow solo that culminated in a shoulder stand. Later he produced an accordion, but instead of playing, he merely squeezed the bellows to produce a raspy breathing. After that, he departed, as if to say it’s not about the clothes or the music.
The remaining five dancers stripped the Schuhplattler to its rhythmic and kinetic essence, but they also expanded it and made it timeless. They moved in circles, in counterpoint, going forward and backward and sideways across the stage; they were so mobile, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them jumping rope. They suggested prisoners in an exercise yard, a drill team, an 18th-century ball, religious initiates, kids at recess looking to see who could do some sequence the longest. With Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld stepping out from time to time to operate a laptop, they cavorted to everything from wind and waves and jet-engine noise to Low’s “Day of . . .’’ and Hudson Mohawke’s “Very First Breath.’’ The trio who faced the audience and strutted to “Very First Breath’’ looked all ready for Broadway.
After an hour, the dancers began to slip away; by the 85-minute mark, only Esbert Lilienfeld and Francesca Foscarini were left. They faced off in a duet that was also a duel; it didn’t seem right that either should lose, and in the end they went off together. No need to go on all night; Sciarroni’s point about the infinity of dance had been made.
“FOLK-S_will you still love me tomorrow?’’
Presented by Alessandro Sciarroni. At: Institute of Contemporary Art, Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater, Friday Feb. 17. Remaining performance: Feb. 18. Tickets $15-$25, 617-478-3103, www.icaboston.org
Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com.
