Ram Island no more

You say goodbye, I say hello

By Tanya Whiton

LATER ON: Ram Island may be no more, but their students, here performing Twisted Roots, will continue.

Emceeing your own wake is not a job I’d wish on anyone, and former Ram Island Dance Artistic Director Sara Whale had that lugubrious duty this past Friday night for “Alive and Farewell,” Ram Island’s last performance.

Like most wakes, the show — which marked the demise of Maine’s only professional modern dance company — was well attended. A pervasive air of solemn righteousness on the part of dance community elders was juxtaposed with giddy young students who were preparing to perform.

I’ve always objected to the title “Alive and Well,” for Ram Island’s showcase series, introduced by Whale in 1996, conjuring as it does the image of a surprise recovery. My hope had been that “Alive and Farewell” might focus on what was to come, rather than on what had been lost. Not so.

The evening was composed of several pieces choreographed by Whale and Louis Gervais, none of which were new, as well as a number of works made by teachers for students. The rest were mostly valentines to Whale, like Debi Irons’s burlesque to Barbara Streisand singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”

“We just had to do this for closure, for ourselves,” Whale said, after the show’s opener, a portion of Twisted Rules, the last actual production by the company. A sloppily concocted narrative piece starring Whale and Gervais as pajama-clad lovers tortured by lingerie-clad sprites, Twisted Rules broke no new ground.

I must confess I am a bit frustrated by the notion of someone experiencing closure on my time. Regardless of whether it was the company’s first or last endeavor, hosting a performance implies that there will be some entertainment value for the audience, not just the presenters.

Gervais’ solo work was more interesting, though he did not create a new piece for the show, instead opting to recreate “Live Static,” a performance that won him first place in 1999’s Dance Portland. As a choreographer, Gervais’ desire to break out of the self-effacing role of the dancer is apparent — he takes every opportunity to engage the audience. Goofball movements, vocal percussion, and funny sounds are all part of his repertoire.

In spite of being out of a job and a rehearsal space, Gervais waxed fairly philosophic about Ram Island’s last gasp. “It could be the final kick out of the nest that I probably need,” he said after the show. “I came to Portland, I didn’t have a body of work or a way of generating any, and I got twenty months to create.”

Gervais’s plan is to begin developing his solo career with the work he has made at Ram Island. He spoke openly about the circumstances that transformed “Alive and Well” into “Alive and Farewell”: the company’s well-bankrolled benefactor, Millicent Monks, pulled the plug.

“It’s a double-edged sword [working for Ram Island Dance]. It’s a difficult situation because it’s funded by one capricious person. As an artist, you want to feel like you can really dig in, and it’s hard to feel that way when one person’s whim could change everything.”

The sense of bitterness that underscored Whale’s last moments as Artistic Director was palpable during the show. But in spite of that, there was a certain poignancy to the event. It was found in the wide range of physical types and talents involved, from wraith—thin junior ballerinas to robustly built young modern dancers, and their enthusiasm and adolescent nervousness. Also, it was a pleasure to engage with the idea that dance is a form open to all comers, that all variations of the human body have expressive power and beauty.

This was most apparent in an improvisational piece created by teacher/choreographer Diana Sorus. Sorus and two of her students, one disabled, one not, interacted with each other’s bodies and the surrounding space in a moving exposition of the universal need for physical contact and support.

And newcomer Julia Webb, a 17-year-old choreographer from Hallowell, presented a gorgeous and muscular piece composed to Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco’s narrative ballad about “Mother Jones” from their album, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere. A powerful and expressive dancer, Webb was the highlight of the evening, and at the end of her piece the audience nearly leapt to its feet. After all, wasn’t this what we came to see? A studio show of new work by emerging talents?

Apparently not.

We were called upon to mourn.

In an economic climate that seems to be nudging performance spaces off the map to make way for office space, the loss of any venue for dance or theater is a sad occasion. It certainly isn’t good to see local presenters like the Center for Dance Development or any of Portland’s talented solo artists scrambling for a place to rehearse and present work. And for them, the absence of a studio space in the Portland Performing Arts building is regrettable; because there are artists here whose work merits institutional support and public affirmation. But the overall impression of Ram Island Dance’s final show was that it was an institution whose time had come. Hopefully, what rises from the ashes is a more innovative, experimental and less ego—centric forum for dancers and performers in this area.

Tanya Whiton can be reached at twhiton@ime.net.