Dance duo gets personal in intimate show

Author: Ashley Gammel

Nugent + Matteson Dance, an intimate and charismatic company consisting of its two title performers, Jennifer Nugent and Paul Matteson '00, graced Middlebury's dance theatre on Nov. 9 and 10 with a playful, concise evening program. Matteson, who graduated from Middlebury seven years ago, has been collaborating with Nugent since they founded the company together in 2005. They are strikingly different as dancers - she is a weighty powerhouse on stage, while he is nearly air bound, deliciously lithe and articulate. This incongruity makes for an unusual spin on the heterosexual duo and contributed to the program's edgy, personal tone. What Nugent and Matteson share is a presence that is unabashedly human and a gaze that is so serious it is nearly cross-eyed. Together, these qualities give them the touching and sometimes comic earnestness of children. They are not merely admirable as performers - they are loveable.

The evening opened with "Saint Smother Swans," a duet choreographed by Terry Creach. The pair wound and cupped the space around and between them with endless gesticulations of arms and legs, joining in brief encounters and then dispersing along individual paths ‡ la Merce Cunningham. At one point, Matteson balanced in the air, curled up on Nugent's shoulder, then bounded back onto his own trajectory. The dancers moved with constancy and effort and never arrived at a destination, leaving the audience with the wistful impression of close misses and unresolved journeys. The crackly soundtrack of atmospheric music and a wash of flat, warm stage lighting silhouetted the dancers against an expansive landscape. As the lights faded, Nugent's sausage-sized, powerful fingers stretched and twitched in the air above her head. This battle between the individual body and the great gulf of space was apparent throughout the evening. Nugent and Matteson are interested in human smallness - their solo work to follow revolved around childhood experiences and suggested the childlike vulnerability of adult bodies.

Matteson emerged in shorts and knee-high socks for "Block Idol," his own riff on boyhood friendships, knee scrapes and sexuality. Carrying around a massive pile of blue foam blocks, Matteson performed a spectacle of childhood building and balancing tricks while delivering an endearing and heartfelt monologue that dealt with comic adolescent mishaps but also touched on the adult realm of divorce, death and hopelessness. The piece was more performance art than modern dance, and the audience sighed, laughed and sweated with Matteson as he teetered on foam towers, performed an all-too-familiar prepubescent ritual strip dance and limped pitifully around with his burden of blocks and his stories of house-scaling and premature ejaculation.

Nugent explored similar moments of childhood vulnerability in "Little," her own solo creation. At times, her body language was quite colloquial - she tumbled, clapped and smiled, eventually breaking down into tears and laughter near the end, whispering "cry cry cry Ö laugh laugh laugh." At other times, the movement blurred a bit into vague, repetitive articulation, becoming indistinguishable as in "Saint Smother Swans." All in all, Nugent's moments of physical and emotional clarity were strong enough to transcend even the soupier points in the choreography. She moves with enough bodily mastery to instill awe and yet remains vulnerable, wearing her soul on her sleeve.

The final duet, "Farewell," choreographed by both dancers, was the stand-out of the evening. Dark, sensual costumes, dimmer lighting and a more classical soundtrack signaled that this would be a more adult piece altogether. Indeed, it was not until this final work that the audience became aware of what the two are truly capable of - their collaborative work is clear, emotive and elegant. They traveled close together, weaving an intricate web of unison, mirroring, lifts and tangoing. Departing at last from the upright, colloquial language, the movement was inventive, formally beautiful and full of the connective potential of great partnering. At last, Nugent and Matteson did not appear to be afloat on the sea of the stage - they seemed to come into their own and commanded the space around them. Chest pressed against chest, they pecked at each other with their chins, then Nugent delicately cupped Matteson's head in her palms. As the lights dimmed, they were on all fours, she looking back at him tenderly. After an evening of tenuous and heart-wrenching dancing, the audience was left with the feeling of intrigue and satisfaction, like proud parents who have raised their children and can finally sit back to watch them flourish in the world.