Heidi Durning 50th birthday

Another warm and inspiring evening at the Iwakura Space of Heidi Durning (Fujima Kansoo) last night. To celebrate her fiftieth birthday, and her decades of dancing, Heidi performed two nights of 6 dances each--no mean feat (or feet) considering she had to send out invites, manage the box office, help people navigate, prepare aftershow snacks, and arrange for flute (Nonaka Sat) and djembe (Sun). Bravo to those who continue to stretch and push, on whatever scale in this tough, fun world of fusion theatre.

• Heidi opened with an  Oharame, Okame masked dance from traditional buyo. Her koshi was good, kimari were clean, and the funny yet elegant farmgirl with the puffy face came to life in the small (40-seat) home theatre.

• Next, the Djembe, played with feeling and variety by Ta-ken . We fell into a trancelike state of readiness. 
  
• Then Heidi appeared in FISH, this time in white with two fans, a mermaid-fish gliding serenely across the surface of her little pond. Her face now a mask, her movements deeply Asian but not particularly of America or Japan (she is Swiss/Japanese and American/Japan trained), she created a fluid and serene feel of a lazy lotus pond in summer.

After the intermission, Shadows of the Whisper, a Jomon-inspired dance in a dark kimono painted by Sarah Brayer, Kyoto's renowned painter of luminous moons and dark geometrical emotional patches. The dance though was stiff, almost awkward, and seemed forced. I didn't feel any inspiration of primitive, only a stoneage coldness. The sudden intrusion of electronic recording in an otherwise live event was jarring; moreover there was no give and take.

• Paper dance variation was a fragment of choreography from Jessica Fogel, her Michigan teacher: reading, folding, holding, then discarding a letter. Clean, cool post-modern linear movements, far from the soft buyo curves of Heidi's signature pieces--too short to understand or feel much from.
• End of the way a  samba tribute to her March visit to Brazil got the place hotter, with hip-swivelling sinuous moves and upper-torso freedom unseen before. This time the taped afro-brasilian percussive guitar of Jobim matched perfectly, and orange-shimmy dress seemed to descend from another continent.
• Wavering in the Goldfish Bowl finished the feast: swimming and gliding, inspired by Daniel Kelly's carp paintings. Orange and red and energetic, and now exuding her full presence, making waves throughout the house, Heidi ended with a deep bow, and she and Ta-ken took much-deserved applause.
  

Seeing Heidi swirl among the guests with birthday cake and wine, I realized what a fortunate fellow I was to be invited into her fishbowl. How many other dancer-choreographers can there be that show such a variety of competencies in so many genres? 

My only gripe, one that I have had for two decades of watching Heidi: she needs a director/choreographer! Only someone with a trained eye, outside her own expertise but sympathetic to it, can see how what she feels is being shown or not, and how to interpret it differently. Except for the Fogel piece, Heidi is stepping outside herself only insofar as she knows where the boundaries are; wild and limited improvisation, hitting against hard rules and clear directions, might put her in more interesting and inventive places than those she's mastered so far.

And those are remarkably wide-ranging and contained at the same time. She is a bright comet, absorbing influences through all the foreign airs she passes through, yet clean in her line and determined in her thrust. She moulds those disparate genres and styles to her own clear presence, so she is always dancing versions of Heidi, but an expansive one that draws continued fans.
A Heidi concert is also a chance to reconnect with the family and their friends. Quentin, slaving at the door and kitchen, builder of the stage and the house and the garden. The children, kind and humorous, welcoming all with smiles as though it's only another home-party during the holidays. And Mio, clapping along with grandma or whirling during intermission as though everyone is here to see HER. More than the plush-seat dark distance of public-theatre dance concerts, I leave a Heidshow having felt myself partaking in a deeper mystery of life, of connecting styles and cultures and generations. And I
almost always feel warm and good (maybe it's the red wine)...

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