Vertigo Dance Company Review
Mana, Vessel of Light

By Sean Ongley

This performance represents everything that I find unclear about the people and culture of Israel. The writer is the writing, and this writer writes his ignorance in to it. The dancers are the dance; the company is its environment. Israel is a modern nation in the heart of ancient civilization; posterity is impossible to ignore. The home of Vertigo Dance Company is Jerusalem, a controversial city in conflict with the Palestinian people. If, like this writer, you have never been there nor seen Vertigo (Dance), then you may be unclear as to the meaning of Mana, Vessel of Light – its final showing to run tonight, October 15th at the Newmark Theater.

At the onset of Mana, there is conflict -- much like the onset of Israel as a civilization – and at the end of it, more conflict. The conflict is most often between the music and the movement: fast erratic, arrhythmic movement against ambient, harmonious synth music. The score cross-fades between waltz piano motifs in minor -- hinting a Satie phrase -- building a 3/4 rhythm for a majority of the dance. At the end, a high-energy 4/4 electronic beat fades back to that familiar piano motif while movement-breath remains looping in that energetic 4/4 section; conflict between the music and movement begin and end the performance.

The movement hybrids classical, contemporary, eastern and western forms, much like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There, you have the cradle of civilization to the western way of life, but remaining in the Middle East are ancient attachments, so there is a constant ambivalence if not war between world views, technological change, and of course customs and practices. The bringing together of ballet, martial arts, and modern dance confused this writer and I was left feeling that I was missing something. I am not trained to analyze dance nor interpret narrative from a technical standpoint. My lack of familiarity with the forms and culture had me uncertain whether or not this was a good piece of work. At moments, I believed there was too much individual interpretation of the steps because it seemed that each dancer had a different way of presenting them, it often appeared out of sync. There may be deeper motivations for this, because it does not seem that we are dealing with amateur artists at all. The physical feats accomplished here were magnificent. Perhaps, this is the civilization that is coming to reign in Israel, contradistinctive to the hopes and dreams of its founders to become a single solidified hodge-podge of diverse people under a Jewish regime. And in the world today that is what we have, a modern people out of sync and individualized, interpreting the world differently, yet making all the same steps.