Essence of Cedar Lake

Got pulse? Glassy Essence--the latest installation from Benoit-Swan Pouffer and his talented team at Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet--will surely quicken it, but only if you don't much prefer to be sedately stationary, safely gazing front and center from your seat of judgment.

All of CLCB's theater seats have been removed. To watch Glassy Essence, you must stand for 45 minutes. But you should also have eyes at the back of your head and--like the dancers--be quick on your feet, trotting to a new spot to catch action popping up around the perimeter of the space. And that action will suddenly pick up and dash to a new location. Multiple actions break out at once. Where to look?

You and your fellow audience members, herded into the center of the theater, must contend with sixteen dancers unpredictably drifting or barreling through that unstructured, unprotected space, indenting and slicing the crowd. I had an embarrassing moment when Jason Kittelberger approached from behind me, and I could not react quickly enough to prevent my shoulder bag from briefly ensnaring him. Push came to shove.

Glassy Essence, like other installations by Cedar Lake, is a phenomenon expressly designed to draw the young Chelsea art crowd who might not normally give dance a thought. I cannot imagine that its vertiginous staging, intense energies and whiff of divine decadence--that dark and steamy section where dancers pose and interact for our voyeuristic pleasure among a wall of blocks--would not wow the Chelsea folk and more. None of it makes a whole lot of sense, but it is a whole lot of sensation. Relax. Let go. It's a show.

I loved Alexander Dodge's set--the relatively narrow rim of dance space surrounding us, the wall of blocks, the platform rising from a darkened floor. The dancers--trained and coached to a high polish--gave it their CLCB all, as I've come to expect. For my money, though, Kittelberger's the star of Glassy Essence, and the only one who makes the intermittent aerial work look eerily unworldly, edgy and ominous. See this, if for no other reason, to see him.

There's all sorts of fun stuff--a blog, videos, podcasts and more--accessible from the dedicated Glassy Essence site. If you'd like, you can take non-flash photos and upload them to this site. If you were one of the lucky ones at opening night's 9pm show, you took home a flash drive bracelet with video excerpts. Gimmicks? Playthings of a wealthy organization? At least Pouffer's upfront about why he's doing this, and it will probably pay off.

Two shows per night (8pm and 9pm), Thursday-Saturday through May 3.
Ticketing at SmartTix