Review | ‘FORUM’: A Canvas for the Soul

Professor Brandon Whited, Chair of the UCSB Department of Theater and Dance and Artistic Director of the Santa Barbara Dance Theater, with co-choreographers Dalya Modlin and Calder White, and a brilliant team of UCSB dance majors, created FORUM a stunning new work that weaves together threads of the human condition in modern times. They ask us, in these challenging times, “How do you find comfort?” 

A forum is a place of discourse, a place to share ideas (program notes).  The set, designed by Whited and built by Richard Croy and Andrew McIntyre, created an amphitheater-like space which framed the action. Three steps on stage right plunge down toward center stage with an Escher-like sense of geometry, as if the steps, elongated by perspective, dive into another dimension. 

FORUM was spectacular, the dancing powerful and flawless. The partner work was fascinating, with the obvious signature of Whited, who has recently published a book on the physics of partnering. The emotions expressed through the combined effects of lighting, sound, and movement were at times humorous, and at times a gut-punch of sorrow. 

“We found that a lot of what we were making naturally reflects and comments on the times we are experiencing … great division, polarization, discriminatory policies, hateful rhetoric, violence and much more…. Some themes that emerged are seeking and longing for connection … the desire to fit in and be understood,” explained Whited.

Organized into seven chapters with a prologue, introduction, and epilogue, each episode was marked by dramatic changes in lighting and music.

Prologue:  We hear the dancers’ feet stomping in ¾ time. As the curtain is raised, revealing a cyan-lit stage, the dancers scatter, leaving only the soloists, Modlin and White, dancing in silence. New lighting adds hints of orangy-pink — a sunrise? The soloists are joined by the company for Chapter One. 

The music is Michael Wall’s “Trumpet 6.” The dancers create tangled knots of arms and legs, joining and letting go, changing formations. Eventually each one exits the group and watches. Two at a time perform duets in the center of the forum, men with women, women with women, and men with men, while the others look on. 

Elements of Whited’s research were apparent. He sees “dance as social activism, a means of rubbing against widely accepted notions of gender and heteronormativity in an attempt to liberate the expressive potential of all dancers, regardless of social codes for (acceptable) behavior.“

As Chapter Two begins, the lighting melts into warm orange and red hues; the music changes to Wall’s “7-90,” in 7/8 meter, with otherworldly sounding chimes and gongs, and a hint of didgeridoo. The dancers regroup into couples, executing stately moves as they cross the stage with elegant steps. Gradually the couples merge into a circle, their steps morphing into a primitive folk dance — a ritual? 

Eventually, one soloist (Moldin) spins off from the group. Is she injured? Out of control?

Suddenly the soft red light gives way to a dramatic shaft of white light, looking like sunrise on an airless world. The other dancers join Modlin, audibly asking her, “Are you all right?” Two lone dancers, with faltering gait, try to enter the forum from the back, but keep falling off the steps. No one seems to notice them. The dancers seem to stumble around the Forum, each in their own universe of … agony? 

“There are moments of melancholy, quiet reflection, efforts to connect and bond with other individuals or the group as a whole… feeling like a clown … and recognizing the pain and sadness underneath the comedic facade,” said Whited.

Melancholy feelings, expressed in ¾ time, alternated with bold, dramatic action, expressed in meters reminiscent of African (“4-120”),  Persian (“6-120”) and Balkan  (“5-140”  and “7-170”) music. Modlin’s solo in Chapter Three, danced to “3-122,” was so pitiful that I wanted to cry. She kept trying to connect but was constantly rejected, sought succor, but was refused. In White’s solo in Chapter Five, danced to Wall’s “An Agreement,” also in ¾ time, he, too, was largely ignored. One woman finally gave him a hug, but left before he could catch up with her. Finally, lying on the Forum steps in a shaft of golden light — sunlight? — he rolled off the back edge and … died? 

The costumes ranged from simple shirts and shorts, to short pantaloons, to neck ruffs and wrist cuffs, to baggy pants, to … the girl in the asymmetric skirt. Whited described the costumes as reflecting “the aesthetic of jesters and harlequins, utilizing a white and jewel-toned color palette,” but also “deconstructing and updating the aesthetic in a more contemporary application.” He noted that the dancers collaborated on their individual costumes. 

Whited explained why the choreographers chose music by Michael Wall. “[Wall] offers both highly stylized and metered options, beautifully melodic work, and also somewhat dissonant, non-metered, atmospheric selections that support dance in maintaining its own rhythm and point-of-view as the primary art form.”

Whited distinguishes between the music-first approach to choreography of ballet, traditional modern dance, ballroom, and culturally specific dance forms, and contemporary dance, in which the choreography dictates the music. Wall’s music, explained Whited, “allows the dance to be the primary focus.”

Chapter Seven, the finale, starts in silence with two dancers. The two are joined by two more, who are joined by two more, until two groups of four dancers form one folk dance line. The original soloists (Modlin and White) rush in, and appear to be captured by the group, trapped on the forum steps. After an uncomfortable stillness, the dancers begin to move haltingly across the stage until a lone note of a trumpet begins (Wall’s “Melody for One”).  As the one note is joined by its harmonics, growing louder and louder, the dancers begin rhythmic stomping in ¾ time.  Suddenly the light changes to the same harsh cyan light which opened the show. The company scatters offstage, leaving the two soloists performing the same choreography as in the beginning, this time with the urgency of the deafening otherworldly one-note, as the curtain falls. 

The story ends where it began. Have we come full circle? Or have we arrived at a new level in space-time and understanding, a jump up from the original plane where we started? 

I look forward to more performances by the Santa Barbara Dance Theater.