Three and a half stars
Motus Dance Theatre;
March 28-30;
Wheeler Arts Community Atrium & Theatre

An intellectually and aesthetically engaging five-year retrospective follows the arc of life cycles emanating organically from events surrounding community and Motus Dance Theatre Company and board members. Opening with the provocative improvisational work Pardon My Partum (2004), “pregnancy and its inevitable consequences” leads into Awakening to Dreaming (2005), showing how the process of finding one’s values metaphysically moves from randomness to graceful consciousness. La Fontaine (2003) follows classic Grecian lines in its exploration of “women affected by war.” A Spell for the Sublime (2006), which grows from a text, is symbolically internal and external. With Excerpt from Red Tape (2006), six women break free from being bound with perfection. Star (2005) shows the possibilities of inventions that work and sometimes don’t, while Apathy (2005), in exploring individual and group emotions, equally shows how attitude infects productivity. All Street Lights Go Out (2005) is a gripping family portrait that defies expectations — seated and encumbered by a billow of white fabric, Nina Ryan’s facial expressions are the dance while two figures in black and one in red writhe and pose. Drive Away (2005), “celebrating growing up and moving on,” closes the retrospective with a sense of expectancy. Throughout, the company of 12 showed its maturation of Katie Kasper’s “dream” for a company of “artists who really care for each other as people and creators.”