Vibe Performs Witty, Energized Dances Tonight

Hip to Hip: Vibe dancers performing "This Piece is About The Capitalist Patriarchy." (photo by Abby Farangher)

Energy was high and humor well pronounced at Vibe dance company's performance last night in Wilder main. Boasting such colorful titles as "This Piece is About the Capitalist Patriarchy," as well as an astonishingly deft debut from first-year lighting designer Laurence Yeung, Vibe promises two more pumped shows tonight and tommorrow at 8 p.m.

Opening with a repeat, though freshly tweaked, performance of senior Brinda Adhikari's Fall Forward piece "My Voice in Time," the dancers charged onto the stage with the zeal of a high school football team. If ever a tap piece could be described as a jam, stretching various tangents over a tireless rhythm, this was it. Set to percussive chanting also composed by Adhikari, the 10 dancers combined knee slapping, hand slapping and intricate footwork to form a multilayered and always tight beat. Gracing the spotlight for a solo, Adhikari was in top form, pursing her lips and shooting the audience cool glances.

Next up was sophomore Laurie Pickard's "Untitled," a piece as gritty and sensual as its Portishead backdrop. Clad in red and black, the dancers alternated sweeping leg kicks with short, stunted hand gestures.

Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" set the mood for sophomore Ashley Smith's playfully tough "Killer." Clad in top hats, silver shoes, and pimpin' leisure pants, the tap dancers blended footwork like musicians and closed with Jackson's patented crotch grab.

Sophomore Laura Daugherty glided onto the stage next for "Coffee," a piece so fluid and effortlessly quick, it looked more like figure skating. Entranced by Tchaikovsky's nervous "Arabian Dance," from Act II of The Nutcracker and dressed in a gorgeous green ball gown, Daugherty appeared entirely unaware of the audience, lost in her pensive spins. She exited in such a hush, one felt as though the piece had been performed in privacy and that the audience merely snuck in on her.

Sophomore Catherine Bodnar has breathed strange, new life into the Police's legacy with her piece "Spirits in Material Pajamas," set to the similarly titled '80s pop song. Two pairs of pajama-clad dancers turned the stage into a frolicsome slumber party, finally locking hands and spinning. As the lights went down, the spinning continued, creating a sense of the piece continuing beyond the audience's experience of it - like a fade-out at the end of a song.

Seniors Jordan Mueller and Carrie Carter's "Drinking Rhythms" introduced elements of "Stomp" into the show. Standing around a circular table, presumably at a house party, three performers - labeled "cuppers" in the program - drummed tall pink cups, while five dancers tapped around them, drifting back and forth like party minglers.

Senior Ann Willemsen's "This Piece is About the Capitalist Patriarchy," added considerable spice to the evening. The piece began with two dancers locked in a lewd grasp, strutting in tandem onto the floor. Set to the sensual rhythms of Henry Mancini's "Something for Sellers," Willemson's choreography showed more spunk than most capitalist patriarchs would be capable of. With high leg kicks, swiveling hips and remarkably low cut black skirts, the evening took a startling turn for the piquant.

Curled defiantly on the floor in jeans and a black tank top, Bodnar opened "Rebel Wannabe," apparently a character study of a smug teenager. Set to Fiona Apple's very appropriate "A Mistake," Bodnar leaped up and sauntered around the floor, at times folding her arms, at times diving into somersaults.

Soft blue light, Yeung's most elegant design of the night, opened Corena Gamble's "Falling to Balance," a somber, ethereal close to the evening. Set to Tori Amos' "Playboy Mommy," the dancers achieved a moving balance between collaboration and isolated efforts. At times, the piece felt like six solo pieces being performed simultaneously, implying loneliness.

For such an energized show, "Falling to Balance," would have been a surprisingly understated close. However, Vibe had an encore up its sleeve, the ecstatic "Fame," for which the entire ensemble returned, skipping in single file lines across the floor, arms stretched to the ceiling. It proved a fitting finale for an ensemble that seemed bent all night on disrupting the audience's expectations.