SCORCHED EARTH

St. Ann’s Warehouse hosts avant-garde artists stretching their fields beyond previous articulation. It’s no surprise it has become home to Luke Murphy of Attic Projects, a visionary dance theater creator, writer, dancer, and director. His most recent work, welcomed for its American run, was Scorched Earth.

European crime shows have a particular edge when building cinematic worlds, with suspense that submerges viewers’ psyches into their atmosphere. The visuals are vivid and haunting; when crime and tragedy are introduced, the density of scenes becomes tangible. Murphy has matched this, creating a 90-minute, engaging dance theater.

As lights dimmed, a sinister atmospheric score filled the space as projections of crime scene artifacts flashed.

Dancers seeped in, slow and articulate. A window on the back wall revealed Detective Alison Kerr (Sarah Dowling) revisiting a cold case: the “accidental” death of developer William Dean (Will Thompson) from ten years prior. John McKay, played by Murphy, is caretaker of a field he lost during an auction to Dean. Performers of incredible multidisciplinary caliber, were as profound, emotional, and convincing with words as with movement.

Transitions happened through seamless contemporary movement, lightning shifts, and scenic dismantlings. Murphy conceived a style and pacing that disrupted expectations for moving between ideas, times, and places.

The field was the heartbeat of the narrative, it came to life through dancers in mossy suits, wrapping themselves around characters. During McKay’s tense interview, three moss-covered actors emerge as he spoke about the land’s mistreatment. It’s as if he experienced the turmoil as the choreography’s rich partnering blurred his reality.

Murphy’s intuitiveness in world-building radiated as performers dismantled the set while McKay engaged in a revolving, repetitive gesture sequence. His character’s intensity and sanity warped, movement became quicker and more amorphous as the evening of the death was dissected.

Imperceptively, the. indoor set transformed into a grassy-covered slanty structure representing the field where it all happened. Over and over, the actos climbed up and tumbled down. While pedestrian, the movement maintained a suppleness and release that became painfully beautiful. Exasperated, they climbed again and again, but only Murphy prevailed.

He sat atop the structure overlooking his field, haze still billowing, reacting to the velocity of movement that had just transcended. It was eerie but poignant; the narrative and movement had climaxed. Justice, or lack thereof, unveiled. McKay’s character explained early on, you have to scorch the earth to clear it.

If dance theater were a green field in Ireland, Luke Murphy and Attic Projects has cleared it, setting fire to expectations connecting a multitude of live performance forms, while telling a damn good story.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Emma Edy Morris

Photos by Emilija Jefremova and Pato Cassinoni