It’s been a while now, but I wanted to get some thoughts down about the recent Jill Sigman piece “Rupture,” which was at Danspace at St. Mark’s church.  

 

I had seen Jill’s last piece with Julie, down at the University Settlement.  It felt much more like a performance installation than a dance piece, a twisted carnival in which there was boxing of dummies and Donna Costello (a friend Julie dances with for Shannon Hummel) ministering to a blonde figure on crutches, who turned out to be Jill Sigman.  I think this was a couple of years ago.

 

So off to St. Mark’s we go.  The space is three-quarters, and there are two ginormous video screens, a pair of aluminum A-frame ladders, and a ring of inscribed eggshells on the floor.  

 

The costumes are eclectic.  Jill is in what could be the red uniform of a waitress, if Snap-on Tools had a carhop.  The ensemble--excellent movers all, and a refreshing range of body types, including Donna--are various flavors of post-punk.

 

The pieces has an edgy beauty to it.  There are moments when Jill speaks into a microphone and you think she  reaaaaally wants to be Laurie Anderson when she grows up.  

 

The opening sequence has the ensemble on the floor and Jill moving about the space, at one point running with her arms behind her like an 8-year-old girl at the pool.

 

She describes the release of a horseshoe crab and some tea into the East River as a liberation, an individual Boston Tea Party.  In one lovely sequence she rises from lying on her belly to standing on tiptoe, describing in single sentences a scene on a river that opens into the world.

 

 

It was a lovely piece.