Isthmus Dance Collective's D.E.L.V.E. concert incorporates almost every kind of dance

Six choreographers’ works are performed

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The Isthmus Dance Collective’s D.E.L.V.E. concert showcases new works by choreographers, and the most theatrically ambitious piece is a choral poem and dance performance called If It Weren’t For Her Stays. Erica Pinigis sets the choreography to poetry by Madison poet Andrea Musher. Pinigis also created the recorded soundscape of voices reciting, chanting and singing Musher’s poetry along with music by Bach and Handel. 

The choreography is inspired by early inventors of American modern dance, Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan. The dancers dress in flowing white clothes, two of whom, Luella Shapiro and Nicole Lane Starr, are skilled aerialists who ascend and descend silks, or cloths, suspended from the ceiling. 

Shapiro starts off as a blindfolded girl caught in a maze. She tries to escape up the silks but drops hanging from her heels and is wrapped in silk. The dancers wrap, corset and squeeze themselves until they breathlessly try to run free. But don’t these fashion constraints make you fabulous? Silvia López poses villainously, stepping over bodies until she is pulled down. Starr body-surfs to the silks and ascends, seeking freedom. But we have plenty of modern versions of corsets. López is back, posing naughtily. 

In what might be the theme for the evening, a voice asks: Do your longings make you ill/legal? The two aerialists set up an exciting pendulum motion swinging past each other to a song about flying blind.

In a grand finale, the dancers burst onstage clothed in white, leaping, running, twirling, experiencing the freedom of Isadora Duncan, a dancer who freed bodies and minds.

The performance is a delight, although it could benefit from some paring down of the script.

Krysten Hagedorn brings her circus background to Retreat from Red. Her dancers swing LED light toys. A software program lights the toys in intricate colored patterns synced to the music. An aerialist spirals up the silks and then performs a breathtaking drop. The coordinated play of dancers’ movements and lights lifts our spirits; the theme of the dance is mental health. 

Edward Salas takes inspiration from Octavia E. Butler’s stories for his dance Earthseed. The dance is about hope despite violence. Dancers hide their eyes as others fight. They form rows and reach their claw hands towards the audience. The dancers move in staccato martial arts rhythms, staring intensely. They cry up to the sky and then release hopefully into bounding solos by Erin Alberts and Haley Johnson.

Natalia Armacanqui’s career exemplifies border crossing as she travels artistically from Madison to dance cultures of India, Peru and the Middle East. Her dance Nature is Queer is a meditation on the idea that despite suppression, land and bodies will be free (and queer). The dance begins to the soulful sound of Mozart’s Requiem and then switches to battle music. The dance resets with belly dance undulations to Lebanese singer Maya Nasri and comes together over the infectious "Boogie Stop Shuffle" by Charles Mingus. The dancers start a group clap for Alex Wagner, who performs a lovely solo. When Mozart’s Requiem returns, dancers in the corners of the stage go back to fighting while Wagner and Christopher Coffman execute a spiritual swing dance culminating in a hug. The message: land and bodies will be free.

Liz Sexe contributes P.L.U.R. (Peace. Love. Unity. Respect.). The dancers build energy slowly, bent over, hands trailing the ground, or walking on all fours. They uncoil, unwind and unleash. Sexe draws on her Mills College background in the aleatoric work of John Cage and Merce Cunningham. The dancers on stage choose a path and the direction of their movement changes, like lights blinking on and off. 

In the grand finale, the dancers invite the audience to join them on the dance floor, arms raised, under Jim Vogel’s colored lights. 

José Cruz-Arzón brings down the house with his 21 dancers in The People vs. Them. His motto is that you don’t have to change yourself to be a dancer. The dancers bump, grind, pose, and engage in dance battles. Beyoncé’s “PURE/HONEY” plays. They loosely divide into two high-energy groups that one might call pretty girls and pretty boys — both are irresistible. Check it out.

Pinigis, who is president of the nonprofit cooperative Isthmus Dance Collective, introduced Friday’s D.E.L.V.E. concert, explaining that they are an opportunity for artists who are not members of the collective to join members in creating dance performances featuring every possible dance style. 

Performances continue Saturday, May 17, at 3 and 7:30 p.m. at the Madison Circus Space, 2082 Winnebago Street. For tickets and further information, see the Isthmus Dance Collective website.