Four years ago, Gin MacCallum appeared like an apparition in a solo performance choreographed and performed by her - a diminutive tornado of movement, surefootedly destroying any doubts that might lie in her path about her talent. In her first full-length choreography, "In the Shape of a Spider," performed over the weekend at Christ Church, the surefootedness was still there and so was the choreography for her strong soloists, but she was not so successful in massing her group of six unevenly matched dancers.
Dancers spin an intricate web
MacCallum had in her cadre four of Philadelphia's most accomplished and watchable dancers - Kathy Genn, Katharine Livingston, Brenda Kunda and Kate Watson-Wallace - and one wonders why she did not dance with them alone. In Genn, she has found a kindred spirit who matches her in lightness of being and fluidity of movement.
Aside from the splendid performances turned in by each of these and by MacCallum, there was also dreamy imagery in the dancing and in MacCallum's video projections. Helena Espvall Santoleri composed the moody cello music and performed it live as the dancers periodically pulled her around the stage on a large wagon.
Structured on a Lars Gustafsson poem, "The Death of a Bee Keeper," the arc of the dance suggested mornings lying lazily in bed studying a spider's motions as it spins its web. Certainly, Genn dressed in spidery black in her opening solo, and jackknifing her body across the stage while lying on her side, suggested arachnid movement. This theme carried throughout with all the dancers spinning, swirling and skittering across the floor. Aside from Genn and MacCallum, the other dancers all wore black sport jackets, suggesting, perhaps, the males of their species.
MacCallum, in a tattered unbleached muslin dress, climbed a rope in a section called "a bird with the imagination of a girl or a girl with the imagination of a bird." A shy, birdlike dancer, she has poetry emanating from her unfettered movement, placing her in a special class of soloists. Following her, Livingston danced in a section designated by the lines "a fish with the soul of a girl or a girl with the soul of a fish." Livingston danced lightly, as if she were in an aquatic float, even before the others placed her into a large fish tank.
Although Kunda looked wonderful leading the others with fluttering fingers and little puffs of breath that seemed to propel them forward, there were some traffic mishaps in the final section called "many who believe they are one or one who believes itself many." Too many, unfortunately, making MacCallum's choreographic web too flimsy to last to the end.
No further performances are scheduled.
Kate Watson-Wallace next performs in the New York Dance Exchange, Saturday, CEC Meeting House Theater, 3500 Lancaster Ave.; 215-387-1911.
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