Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Sculptural lighting takes center stage in FRONTERA, Dana Gingras’s dystopian hip hop ballet

• By drediman
• November 9, 2024
• No Comments

This weekend for two nights only, you’ll be able to catch Canadian dance troupe Animals of Distinction perform Frontera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House. Created by Animals of Distinction founder and artistic director Dana Gingras, the full-length dance piece is in essence a stylized dystopian portrait of a group of anxiety-ridden youths who band together to retaliate — in grass roots manner — against modern society, namely invasive technology and political oppression.

Using both hip hop and contemporary dance as a springboard, Gingras has pieced together a series of visually striking choreographic set pieces that dynamically interact with United Visual Artist’s dazzlingly sculptural lighting (at one point, I was distractedly reminded of Chicago’s “Cell Block Tango” on Broadway, but that’s neither here nor there), which invariably represents some aspect of the “evil empire”. At times, the seemingly impenetrable and oppressive lighting design even upstages the dancing — likely by intent — often overpowering Gingras’s choreography, which mostly takes place in the shadowy recesses of the stage, either retreating from surveillance or cowering behind perceived walls. While some of the choreographic variations are a tad on the nose and a certain sameness sets in after a while, I applaud the eclectic company of ten dancers for creating a strong sense of community amongst themselves. Whether literally on the run or urgently conveying paranoia, their commitment to the piece and its world was palpable.

Both thematically and stylistically, the piece calls to mind the work of Botis Seva, whose company Far From the Norm made its American debut with BLKDOG earlier this fall at The Joyce Theater. While that piece looked inwards to depict crisis amongst youths to gut-wrenching effect, Gingras’s Frontera and her dancers take a more panoramic, decidedly less visceral approach, impressively using of the opera house’s vast stage to paint striking stage pictures against the sonic backdrop of Montreal experimental-rock band Fly Pan Am’s blaring live music-making.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

FRONTERA
Dance
Animals of Distinction / Brooklyn Academy of Music
1 hour, 10 minutes (without an intermission)
Through November 9