During the second of two world premieres by Chris Elam/Misnomer Dance Theater, I finally got a handle on the show’s title–"Throw People." I was watching Throw People, the dance, and thinking about how Elam views his performers and how they partner one another. Suddenly, I thought of throw rugs and throw pillows. Some might find Elam’s style an acquired taste but its exceptional imagery has won him and his performers a heap of critical praise.

Land Flat presents a quartet of beings--Brynne Billingsley, Jennifer Harmer, Coco Karol, and Dorian Nuskind-Oder–who are so strange in carriage, propulsion, and interaction that they could represent the first sightings of an as yet unidentified species. They certainly do not behave as humans or as recognizable animals or insects do. What looks awkward, abrupt, or even painful to us might be, as they understand things, quite beautiful. Now imagine these creatures putting on what they might consider a ballet–an excerpt from an alien Swan Lake, perhaps--and you’ve got some idea of Land Flat. Or if that’s too hard to wrap your mind around, try this: Ask a German shepherd to dance a ballet. How about a dolphin? A scorpion? I think Elam sets himself and his dancers these kinds of challenges, crafting the kind of works you don’t see every day. Some observers have likened Misnomer’s style to Momix and Pilobolus, but by comparison those troupes look airbrushed, sanitized, and tarted up with high-tech lighting effects. They might be thrilling to some, but they don’t make you chuckle and recoil at the same time.

Throw People--set to a mellifluous, mysterious score by Andy Teirstein, played live by Teirstein, Peck Allmond, and Diana Herold–is the wilder and woolier of the two works. Elam, Karol, and Luke Wiley remain recognizably human throughout but behave even wackier, if possible, than the creatures in Land Flat. (In fact, Wiley not only is recognizably human, but if he had not dyed his copious dark hair copper-red, he’d look exactly like my sister-in-law!) Elam and Karol start out by delicately molding their stretchy bodies to each other, regarding one another as physical puzzles to be solved. The distortions and contortions, the bizarre partnering choices and risks go on and on–a seemingly endless but never tiring stream of childlike curiosity and creativity from the brightest, and scariest, kids on the block. If the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, don’t expect Elam to walk it. (Visit Chris Elam/Misnomer Dance Theater at www.misnomer.org.)

©2006, Eva Yaa Asantewaa