DA DA DANCE PROJECT
August 3, 2009
Somewhere between the realm of dance, and the realm of acting, lies the Da Da Dance Project. Conceived in 2008 in New York by Guillermo Ortega Tanus, a native of Mexico, and Eun Jung Choi-Gonzalez of Korea, the two have come a long way for such a youthful group.
Their current project Butter and Fly: Intends to Walk is cut into four pieces featuring the duo. The work is in some ways a love story that develops between these two. Sometimes the dancers speak to each other, sometimes they sing; the entire time interacting with the bipolar extremities of lovers.
We follow them through their quarrels and intimate moments getting to know them like characters in a play. It doesn’t hurt that both performers are incredibly endearing, with cute accents and goofy mannerisms drawing us closer to them.
Da Da Dance is however, also a notable example of contemporary dance, full of creativity and quirkiness all its own. The dancers emerge on the stage for the first piece PLOY (2009) covered only in an impressive array of colorful post-its. Taking wounded baby steps around the stage, we think of baby birds fallen from the nest.
The post-its, I noted, made a pleasant rustling sound. Much as baby birds grow up the dancers slowly began exploring the stage, their movements growing ever more furious, slapping and stomping their feet. The post-its slowly fall from their body, revealing their true humanity (in every sense of the word.)
The last piece BLUEPRINT (2008) is also worth noting for its successful melding of performance dance and techno music, a match not often made in heaven. Donning opaque rain-jackets our star performers leap and run around the stage with all the energy of small children, managing to pull off a compelling performance, keeping our attention riveted to them straight to the end.
J. Gonthier