Body language

Fusionworks' uplifting Voices

by Johnette Rodriguez

BODY OF VOICES. Fusionworks presents works by Peter Schmitz, Deb Meunier, and Laura Bennett. At Brown University's Ashamu Dance Theater, Providence, through April 8.

True to their name, Deb Meunier and her Fusionworks dancers draw from many traditions in their works and from many places in the community for their collaborations. The company's spring concert, "Body of Voices," bears this out in new pieces as well as in the pairing of their dances with the gospel selections of a 14-member non-denominational group called Delivered Anointed Ones.

The Delivered Anointed Ones come onstage singing "This Little Light of Mine," and follow that with four other numbers, accompanied on piano and directed by Earnest Cox. Their voices and their spirit ring true and they set the tone for Marty Sprague's "Abide In His Presence," a short but powerful Tai-chi-like piece danced to the haunting pennywhistle of Pendragon's Phil Edmonds.

Next is a lovely, flowing duet choreographed by native Rhode Islander Laura Bennett and danced by Kerry Gallagher and Deb Meunier to the music of Villa-Lobos. The choreographer celebrates the sensuality of the music in the classical lines of the dancers' bodies. She expresses its passions in the dramatic movements of her piece: the dancers' arms sweep up and whirl them round; their legs carry them in wide arcs across the stage but also bend backwards, lowering them onto the floor. The dancers convey a yearning, a search for meaning and an ongoing effort to connect with each other. At the end, they strike an almost sculptural pose.

The piece titled "To fill the spaces where my body's been" is announced as a work in progress, with choreography by New Englander Peter Schmitz in collaboration with the five dancers: Donna McGuire-Connell, Deb Meunier, Laura Newell-Reynolds, Marty Sprague and Stephanie Stanford. The first section, set to Handel, is fugue-like, with movements echoed from one dancer to another. The second, set to Monteverdi, glides into minuets, as duets and trios form and re-form.

The piece is acrobatic, with handstands and cartwheels tossed here and there, and incredibly energetic, the dance tempo kept almost double-time to the music. The group incorporates teaching each other body placement, experimenting with movements and, quite literally, bouncing off each other, into the frenetic flow. Then, suddenly, the music changes to a raspy Appalachian voice scratching out the strains of "Wayfaring Stranger," and the troupe shifts down a notch. But their enthusiasm for "let me just try this" or "hey, what about that?" never wanes.

The second half of the program opens like the first, with a bouquet of gospel songs, proffered with polish and with gusto. The Delivered Anointed Ones are followed by a four-movement piece, choreographed by Deb Meunier to traditional Brazilian songs sung by Virginia Rodriguez, called "The Moons of Rousseau."

Inspired by Henri Rousseau's paintings, The Dream, The Sleeping Gypsy, and Exotic Landscape, and harking back to her own Latina roots, Meunier plugs into the contemporary idiom with Latin music and the hip-swaying movements of her dancers. Marvelously evocative costumes (by Heidi Henderson) and lighting (by Timothy Cryan) are all-important in this work, as both create the dappled dreamworld of Rousseau's jungle.

Meunier and the dancers in the piece (McGuire-Connell, Gallagher, Newell-Reynolds, Sprague and Stanford) have fun with the Rousseau images, as monkeys in the gibbous moon phase, as the reclined woman with splayed feet in the waxing crescent, as slithering fish in the neap tide of the full moon. McGuire-Connell has a beautiful solo in the new moon-no moon phase, a high-waisted skirt transforming her into a Victorian woman grieving for a loss. "The Moons" is visually stunning, as the five dancers weave in and around one another, the bell-like voice of Virginia Rodriguez ringing changes on their undulating bodies.

"Body of Voices" leaves you exhilarated from watching the voice of each dancer emerge from her body and from experiencing the effect of soulful harmony on the bodies of the singers. You leave the theater torn between a hip-wiggling slide and a hand-clapping spiritual. Either way, you'll feel like dancing and singing.