"Sally Meets Stu" by Ate9 dANCEcOMPANY

(Fais Do-Do, 13 July 2013)

Aristotle believed that heavier bodies fell faster.

Science progresses because it tests, not canonises, its hypotheses. Art progresses as it discovers new ways to design experiments (which help the viewer discover his preferences and offer to him new perspectives on others) and to gratify. Classical ballet only seeks to gratify. Preserving the traditional means of gratification is an end in itself, for classical ballet.

Contemporary ballet, as contemporary science, does not appeal to authority. Its priority is to enrich the vocabulary. Ate9 is the experimental quantum mechanics of dance. Ate9 ventures into the world where the classical intuition fails. Once-in-a-lifetime events are as exotic to an individual as quantum phenomena were to the classical physicist. With evidence scarce and premeditated reasoning incomplete, individuals act in ways that do not conform with others' expectations.

One can get by with classical physics alone; one can neglect surrealism, censor irony, and dismiss the quantum phenomena at the heart of contemporary dance---but not if one yearns to understand completely and communicate parsimoniously.

Danielle Agami's ballet is intense, direct (not literal), and immediate. It is of precarious peace and of the urgency of the moment. To act and irrevocably err is better than to waste oneself on chores and indecision.