“And then...the image” Hubbard Street dancer Andrew Murdock narrates. The image changes, shifting from room to room inside the sprawling Schweikher House, to Murdock sitting alone in a small wood paneled den, to dancers frozen like statues on the lawn outside of the house. One by one they walk through the door and take a seat inside the living room on the couch, or by the piano, a tension in the air as they shift uncomfortably in their seats. As they begin to move about the house again, we, the audience, find ourselves inside each of their stories, and inside their minds.
In this manner, THE SKY WAS DIFFERENT, a new dance film choreographed and directed by Jonathan Fredrickson, gives the audience a glimpse inside the dancers’ personal thoughts and feelings through text, spoken word, and vignettes told through dance.
Inside Their Heads
Each scene brings us into a different dancer's mind. Alyssa Allen flips on the radio in the living room of the Schweikher House, and it’s her own voice in conversation that begins to play back to her. “How are you feeling?” a voice asks, “I’m okay, just in my head” her recorded voice responds. She begins to move, facing a dancer standing still in front of her. She turns around to find herself facing another dancer, sandwiched between the two. She wraps her arms around herself, furling and unfurling into herself in snakelike motions. As she shifts and turns around again, she finds a different dancer standing in the same spot. It’s almost as if she is playing a game of musical chairs, finding a new person in front of her each time. There’s a sense of looping, feeling stuck in one place as she twists, “...kind of like I’m lost, kind of like I’m suspended between loneliness and fantasy,” the recording relays.
Nominated for Picture This Post BEST OF 2021