Dance and music maps movement

Author: Eleanor Johnston

In one of the concluding events of last week's Clifford Symposium "Islam and Politics in a Changing World," Artist in Residence Leyya Tawil and violinist Mike Khoury presented their multi-dimensional exploration of Arab-American boundaries in the Mahaney Center for the Arts Dance Theater on Oct. 6. Tawil, of Syrian-Palestinian descent, began the program with her solo dance "Land.Mine/Map of the World," a contemporary piece punctuated with breath and voice. Khoury, Palestinian by birth, followed with a penetrating improvisation on the violin. In the last third of the performance the artists dialogued on the spot, wordlessly acknowledging and moving within each other's creations.

Tawil's solo moved from a case of cultural cabin fever to a triumphant rebirth of identity. The piece consisted of two distinct parts - a struggle for space within given boundaries and a fixation on the ground and its powerful spirit. Within the first few moments she broke her first boundary - the use of voice with dance. In the first part the character set her stage with red tape, demarcating a box on the white floor and verbally labeling each side "Map of the World" 1-4 and christening them with such statements as "Kings," "Thieves" and "Person who does not understand vortexes." Maps 5 and 6 consisted of the top of a scribbled and crossed out list of paradises and the center of the floor, respectively, gave the space volume. The six maps were graced with movement sequences to Mark Gergis' "Map of the World #1-6."

Tawil's struggle to rise above and transcend the boundaries of her prescribed world reflected the search for one's individuality within and between cultures. Although the piece had a definite political undertone, Tawil saw individuality as the goal.

The second part was indicated by a removal of her grey coat in favor of a bright red dress, a simple but effective costume design by Scott Tallenger. Radiant in red and majestic in stance, she mapped out her world with her feet to the deep and engulfing chords of "Land.Mine" by Topher Keyes, the Resident Composer for Tawil's Oakland-based company Dance Elixer. This time her movements kneaded the ground, her supple energy transforming the space around her into a malleable force rich with what she later described as "the spirit of the soil."

As the piece progressed she tumbled and turned, accepting and rejecting the cultural labels fighting to quantify her until finally, transformed into an undefeatable spirit she overcame her divided world and passed out of the box into eternity. When asked about the significance of this transformation, Tawil said, "You can't make people disappear." Her piece reached beyond cultural delineations towards the persistent individual in space and time. "It's a way of representing the continuum," she said.

Khoury was pulled into the continuum after Tawil's performance. Standing on her sixth map, Khoury improvised a piece that seemed to stretch beyond the instrument itself. Though many find modern instrumentals hard to interpret, the piece benefited by avoiding traditional structures that can bar the imagination. As one audience member so aptly put it, "it was easy to get into the space of the music." Tawil clearly concurred - the last piece was an improvised conversation that linked music to movement. Reaching this point can be difficult - the artists described a gateway at which they must abandon certain rules to reach creative evolution. Tawil reminded the audience that it is important to recognize that improvisation is not just random play - these performers work within a self-made structure than enables them to establish a past, present and future.

The take-home message? "That the human spirit is invincible," said Tawil. "This is a universal theme that audiences can connect with personally, socially, politically, or however else they wish." There are so many authorities in our lives that it can be hard to maintain one's roots, exist in the present and still grow by that much-revered rule of independence. If this cross-cultural world is a Venn Diagram, then we are all seeking the nexus where something of everything fits. Hopefully we'll reach those spaces, and when we get there, just keep going.