Film Feedback
New This WeekAround TownMusicFilmArtTheaterNews & FeaturesFood & DrinkAstrology
  HOME
NEW THIS WEEK
EDITORS' PICKS
LISTINGS
NEWS & FEATURES
MUSIC
FILM
ART
BOOKS
THEATER
DANCE
TELEVISION
FOOD & DRINK
ARCHIVES
LETTERS
PERSONALS
CLASSIFIEDS
ADULT
ASTROLOGY
PHOENIX FORUM DOWNLOAD MP3s

  E-Mail This Article to a Friend
Endgames
Prometheus’s Apokalypsis
BY MARCIA B. SIEGEL

Diane Arvanites-Noya and Tommy Neblett made Apokalypsis three years ago, before crisis had taken over the screens of our lives, but the hour-long dance-theater piece certainly complements the gloomy mood of contemporary America. Newly staged for eight members of Prometheus Dance, plus some 20 seniors and young dancers, the work spread out effectively into the cavernous Cyclorama space at the Boston Center for the Arts last weekend; it will be repeated there this Thursday through Sunday.

When you enter, you see a crumbling section of a graffiti-splattered wall and a chainlink fence with leaves blown up against it. An open space is surrounded by a thin grove of amputated birch trees that have been replanted or are hanging upside down. Black umbrellas hang in the branches. Dirty smoke drifts through the trees.

Two lines of people in black make their way into the clearing, led by a woman playing a Jewish-sounding tune on a violin. (Original music for the piece was mainly by John Kusiak.) Slowly, a few at a time, they cross the space, bending over to roll fist-size rocks along the ground. The acoustic sounds of running feet or tumbling rocks on the resonant wooden floor summon up thunder, avalanches, the mysterious flutter of something gone wrong. There is also recorded music in the piece, but the live sound gives the work a vivid presence.

Apokalypsis is theatrical, but suggestive rather than specific in its meanings. The directors say it’s about " the forced exodus of a people from their homeland, " but even though I knew that, I didn’t click into the idea of refugees at any time during the piece. It seemed more like a funeral, or the reflections of people attending a funeral. Someone else might get other images. What Prometheus does so well is to create action that triggers the audience’s imagination and emotions.

In one scene, a large group march back and forth, goosestepping and whipping their arms into angular drill positions. Suddenly they’re running and sliding violently across the floor. They never touch each other, but you perceive a battle. During the commotion, some of them don’t get up, and then there’s a huge silence and they’re all lying on the floor. After a while, other people wander around, poking at the bodies with umbrellas, touching a face, lifting up an arm. When you think of how many hackneyed battle scenes you’ve seen staged by others, this one seems amazingly concise and nonliteral.

Five principal women and three men (the Prometheans) play out scenes of sexual pursuit and frustration. The men run in place with baby steps, their backs to the audience. They sprint together and slam into the wall. They grab the women from behind. The women writhe as if in anguish or fear of entrapment. The larger group are always nearby, squatting in small circles under the trees, or dancing in communal echo of the principals’ desperation.

There are six older women, called Elders, who belong to the larger chorus but sometimes evoke memories. In one of the calmer moments, the music offers a klezmerish accordion-and-clarinet tune and one of the men invites one of the Elders to dance. Another man hovers protectively near them with an umbrella. Later on, all the men foxtrot with the Elders, cutting in on one another.

The five Promethean women appear in white slips and do a hysterical, writhing dance with their long hair whipping around their heads as if they might smother themselves. One of the old women stands in a spotlight and chants or wails what might be a folk song from another life, another country.

Toward the end there’s an increasing sense of persecution. The space grows darker and disembodied flashlights probe the space until two of them find a woman and pin her to the wall. A man and a woman continue the seemingly inevitable struggle — he tries to subdue her, she tries to escape. No one else is around, but they’re locked tight together against the wall, even when she tries to scramble away. Momentarily she submits. They fight again. The women don’t always lose. In some of the big groups, you notice them carrying men across their midsections, like logs.

There won’t be any resolution to the sexual struggles for these people, or any lasting refuge in memory. Finally they plod back across the space and go out the way they came. When they’re gone, the floor is dotted with stones they’ve left, like tokens on a grave.

Issue Date: February 20 - 27, 2003
Back to the Dance table of contents.

  E-Mail This Article to a Friend