REDCAT’s 270-seat theater was an apt setting for independent choreographer and CalArts professor Rosanna Gamson/World Wide’s intimate STILL/RESTLESS, which she teased out into two separate sections, “Restless” followed by “Still.” A viewer could be tricked, given the intermission, costume and scenic changes, and slight differences in cast, into thinking these were two separate works, but a study of the program notes and a second thought about the show’s title corrected us: this was one long, linked idea. Two ends of a single spectrum. Light and dark were recurring ideas, and you could say that “Restless” was weighted towards dark while “Still” beamed with light. But elements of both could be found in each, much as stillness was present in “Restless” and vice versa. In “Restless”–the darker of the two–small lights, like drum-shaped bowls that shone upwards when switched on, were placed on the floor, showing faces that glowed ominously in the dark, or, alternately, seemed to direct dancers’ accelerating phrases of movement. Later, rows of scrim-like dark curtains separated the stage into horizontal thirds, obscuring our vision of the dancers. At times, light shone through them, illuminating a blur of bodies; otherwise, the fabric had to be manipulated by the dancers to create […]
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