Destination: 'Strange World'

Dance Troupe performs to the tune of social commentary

By CHHUN SUN

If the goal of the Portable Dance Troupe is to reach the depths of strange with artistic and societal expression, it arrived at its destination.

“Strange World,” which opens today in the Arena Theatre in the Speech Arts building, takes a leap into the world of modern dance and abstractions. It also might leave a lasting impression with the audience. The dancers, director and choreographers are talented and perform where strange and weird things have meaning.

The show opens with “Forest Dance,” the most traditional dance performance of the concert. Dancers jump, move their arms with rhythm and tiptoe across the stage gracefully.

The performance foreshadows the rest of the show by allowing a little strangeness to come to light; the dancers perform well together to showcase how a forest can represent the human body.

“Home,” in which director Ruth Griffin participates, starts unusually when the performers stomp their feet in unison, all while they have swim fins on their feet. Along with their fins, the three homeless people are dressed in clown costumes. They dance, play children games and uses boxes as nests, clown trunks and army tanks.

The 10-minute performance touches on several subjects, including friendship and territory.

Each performance gets increasingly longer; the last performance lasts about 20 minutes, but not a moment is wasted.

Throughout “Strange World,” the performers showcase impressive synchronization and body movement. But there are times when some of dance moves weren’t in sync and some dancers stood with impassive looks on their faces.

Showcasing difficult movements, “Colloquium” has its dancers stretching, jumping and stomping in an endless, tedious exchange of hand and body gestures through hypnotic music; at one point, the sound of monkey shrieks is played.

The performance shows the obvious pecking order in communicating with others; when someone messes up, others will notice it. The other performances deal with the relationship in a women’s prison (“Colony”), hands that can change the world (“These Hands”) and our innate self (“This Is Not the Tony Bennett Concert”).

With appropriate music and powerful messages, “Strange World” reaches inside your mind and lets us know about our everyday problems.