DAVID DORFMAN

David Dorfman Dance transformed The Space at Irondale with a set of white panels by
Andrew Schneider, masking the space’s usual decrepit beauty. It feels apropos for the mission
of the work, truce songs, which, as the curtain speech jests, aims to make a truce with its
audience. Seeing the space as a clean slate allows for healing. Within the work, Ian Albanese
reads a text on truces, describing them as acts of resistance and measures of change, all
through improvisation. What unfolds for the hour are physical representations of these
processes performed by a company that, in being pitted against each other, shows just how
much trust and camaraderie it has.

The work begins with an intimate act – company members pair up, removing puffy
outer layers of Naoko Nagata’s vibrant costumes that skew familiar clothing tropes into off-
kilter uniforms. It’s as if the dancers have been at work long before we arrived, and are getting
ready to go deeper and further. Director Dorfman and veteran company member Lisa Race
emerge with yet another white sheet, long and thin. It is used to mask the younger dancers and
separate them, like crafty parents of unruly children. There is no war being fought, but as
youngsters are ought, pining for attention and belonging that must be carefully taught.

As with each outfit, each dancer exudes a distinct character. Some are announced very
formally. Lily Gelfand, after a great deal of commanding the dancers to breathe in (resulting in
tension) and breathe out (relaxation), introduces herself as playing the part of the wind.
Dorfman interrupts Chapter 2 of the three-part work with a jester-like solo to an original song
with a confessional refrain that he “honestly doesn’t know.” Jack Blackmon introduces themself
as “the interrupted,” continuing a gradually emerging structural device until they are
interrupted by the introduction of Chapter 3 – Interruption.

In each chapter is a self-referential sense of discomfort with the present moment. Twice dancers command the group to go to the beginning, protesting that the very beginning is either too far or not far enough. As the piece concludes, sections are sped through with a great deal of laughter. The work is a feat of endurance, particularly in seeing Dorfman’s trademark physicality on fast forward as an ending. Perhaps this is the secret to truce making – reaching a point of exhaustion in which turning back is no longer viable.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY–Jonathan Matthews-Guzman