Magic and mirroring in KUNST-STOFF program

Saturday, October 26, 2002

Octavio Roca, Chronicle Dance Critic San Francisco Chronicle With not a lot of fanfare, some of the most original dance or drama in town is happening at ODC Theater with what amounts to a birthday party for KUNST-STOFF. This stuff is hard to categorize, but it makes for one impressive spectacle. KUNST-STOFF is a fascinating company, and five years after its birth, it is in better shape than ever. It was founded by two young veterans of Alonzo King's Lines Ballet, Yannis Adoniou and Tomi Paasonen, beautiful dancers with a taste for the eclectic. Their latest program is a triple bill of two pieces by Adoniou, "Numerous aXidents per(formed)" and "Yia Yia," with Paasonen's "W" at the center. All three were striking, and "W" was devastating. Paasonen describes his "W" in the program as "a play with you, me, four eyes, two lenses, all of you and the beam in between." It was danced by Adoniou and Kevin Cregan, a guest from the Dutch National Ballet, with stark video projections by Katy Kavanaugh and aggressive use of a live camera by Perry Hallinan. Mika Vainen's electronic score seemed to echo Cregan's racing heartbeat in the opening solo. Cregan's deliberate progress downstage made him look both puzzled and vulnerable as his own image was projected onto his body. There was syncopation in the matches, not quite an equivalence in the live and mechanical pictures. At times, he was on the verge of folding himself into the figure of a sleeping child, only to be awakened into a desperate, soaring flight. The tension only grew when, as if out of nowhere, Adoniou appeared as some kind of dark shadow of Cregan's moves. The two, dressed only in white cotton shirts, were never quite mirror images of each other: There was something in the phrases of Paasonen's deceptively plain choreography that spoke of each man's desires, of each man's particular vision. The two touched, and the moment was gentle and true. But the two also seemed alone by the end, and that also rang true. "Yia Yia," which means grandma in Greek, is dedicated to Adoniou's late grandmother. It is a gorgeous, heartfelt suite of dances set to faraway Chopin and sensual Greek folk rhythms, with live guitar riffs by Jethro De Hart. The piece looked even better at ODC on Thursday night than it did at the Dance Mission Theater two years ago, not least for the pairing of Adoniou and Cregan in duets that created considerable sculptural beauty. Kathleen Hermesdorf, Leslie Schickel, Kara Davis, Nicole Bonadonna, Juliann Rhodes and Kunst-Stoff veteran Nol Simonse seemed at home in Adoniou's dreamlike choreography. Shanon Day sang an eerie vocalise. Images ranging from a beauty queen bearing roses to a tough girl in high heels, from gentleness to violence and from frantic running to sudden stillness, all came together with the surprise only memory brings. "Yia Yia" has grown into a gorgeous piece. Gorgeous, too, is the less ambitious "Numerous aXidents per(formed)," which opened the program and is set to music by Marcus Schulte, Adoniou and De Hart. The most athletic of the three dances, it also succeeds in seeming the most improvisational in the best sense: Every move was believably spontaneous and necessary, from the comic turns at the microphone for each of the dancers to the contact-improvisation duets where two bodies essentially became one. Davis, impressive throughout the evening, traveled from sweet and girlish to commanding in a simple spoken litany -- in Spanish -- of "I am not afraid. . . . Don't be afraid, I'm behind you." The KUNST-STOFF pair have been working beyond the Bay Area lately: Paasonen has moved to Berlin and has premieres scheduled this year in Helsinki and London. Adoniou is working on a commission for another dance company in Athens and is collaborating with Evann Siebens in a multimedia installation set for London, New York and San Francisco next year. But KUNST-STOFF is still here. And, judging by Thursday's spectacle, it is stronger and more fascinating than ever. This is a small company that can make a very big impact.