Seeing a dance that’s set to music to which you’ve also choreographed is unsettling in the same way hearing a song can remind you of a cheating ex. So I was not poised to enjoy “Zero In On,” a duet choreographed by Cayetano Soto. The piece of music in question is “The Opening” by Philip Glass, and it’s beautiful, prickling your skin of its own accord. Its tempo is quick, and notes seem to spill forth continuously, faster than you could gather them up. Soto’s movements followed this temporal guideline too closely–never resting, never carving out their own rhythm aside from the tumbling eighth notes–and the mimicry was a missed opportunity. The program notes drew my attention to the division of space: about ⅔ of the floor was covered with white marley atop the normal black stuff, limiting the space the dancers appeared to be confined to (later, the female ventured onto the black). An upturned rafter bisected the white-floored space diagonally, and 6 lights suspended from it lit the stage. I did especially notice the way Soto played with space–how far the dancers were from one another and when this changed. This was a nice treatment, but it didn’t inspire any visceral reaction. […]
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