Perpetual Motion: An Evening of Time, Money, and

The most spellbinding, intricate, beautiful, moving and dramatic student production I have ever seen on the Mainstage doesn't have a word of spoken dialogue. No capitol-A Actors parade around the stage hysterically wailing for audience empathy in horrible faux-British accents. No garish sets detract from the graceful bodies moving across the stage. No plot line carries the performance from start to well-concluded finish. But you don't miss these dramatic "necessities"--trust me, you hardly realize they're missing. Without characters and plot, an intricate and fascinating drama is created nevertheless through the intimate connection of footwork, supple bodies, hypnotic music and layers of soft light, leaving the audience entirely spellbound.

In Perpetual Motion, the first Mainstage show of the semester, Harvard dancers take their footwork and finesse to the Loeb Mainstage for the first time in over 20 years, beautifully proving that they well deserve this long-awaited spotlight. Until this past weekend, campus dance performances seemed forever confined to lecture halls and small performance spaces hardly capable of illuminating the subtle beauty and powerful art of dance in live performance. Directors Daphne Adler '99 and Kiesha Minyard '99, both past co-directors of the Harvard-Radcliffe Ballet Company, obviously knew that the Mainstage is an ideal venue for showcasing Harvard dancers. They had an arduous task in front of them when they set out to convince HRDC that dance belonged on the much-prized Mainstage spring program. Luckily for them and us, after multiple persuasive attempts Minyard and Adler finally convinced HRDC to end dance's long hiatus from the Mainstage, and Perpetual Motion was brought, literally, to glorious light.

The program featured a wide-mix of dance and music styles, giving even the most dance-illiterate audience member a general idea of the broad scope and long tradition of dance. "Pas de Quartre," the first piece on the program, spotlighted a lovely quartet of rose-bedecked ballerinas drenched in amber light and shimmering in pale pink tutus. To the lilting, romantic strains of Cesare Pugni's 18th century composition, four renowned (and infamously conceited) ballerinas of the past were recreated in all their beauty and gracious snobbery on the stage by four equally-beautiful Harvard undergraduate ballerinas. On Saturday night, Elizabeth Darst '99, Allison Lane '02, Liz Santuro '01 and Mai'a Davis '99 each elegantly claimed the stage with quick footwork, amazing poise and seemingly infinite amounts of grace.

A medley of West Side Story tunes composed the second number of the evening. "Pas de Quartre" was a hard act to follow, and the dancers of "West Side Story" seemed a little awkward and over-dramatic in their attempts to match the beautiful first number. The Harvard Pops Orchestra, accompanying the dancers throughout the first act of the program under the musical direction of Allen Feinstein, seemed under-rehearsed and ill-prepared for Bernstein's score, leaving the dancers to cover the distracting and annoying amounts of musical blunders in the orchestra. Unfortunately, the overdramatic choreography didn't do much to make-up for the ear-wrenching music. Jason Whitlow '99 put in a fine performance as Tony, effectively getting over the melodramatic choreography to step out with some powerful dancing. The rest of the ensemble seemed a little too frustrated with the choreography and the music to give the number the energy it really needed.

The dance to Maurice Ravel's beautiful impressionist piece, "Bolero," more than made up for West Side Story's annoyances. Under the shadowed, sultry lights of talented light designer Ryan McGee '98, Miriam Noble '00's seductive choreography created hypnotizingly proud and poised dancers.

Minyard herself choreographed the last piece of the first act, a jazzy dance set to Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." The orchestra finally managed to pull itself together for this piece, and pianist Jason Leekeenan '02 effortlessly displayed his unbelievable finger-work on the notoriously difficult piano solos. Minyard's sexy, spirited choreography combined jazz moves, classical ballet and wacky gender-bending, and the dancers were obviously all having a ball onstage.

The indisputable highlight of the show came in the second half of the program, as Harvard dancers took to the stage for the entirety of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Using the choreography of Babil Gandara, the principal choreographer of the South Texas Dance Theater, Harvard dancers turned the Loeb Mainstage into a swirling, swarming arena of motion and light. Clad in bodysuits of various neon and tie-dyed colors, the dancers marched in perfect unison onto the stage in the opening number, "Speak to Me," like drones from a futuristic world where money clangs and clammers in everyone's gigantic communal ear. The safety of conformity and seduction of rebellion, themes prominent in Pink Floyd's music, were recreated in stark and surprising ways through the choreography.

Particularly notable numbers were the amazing synchronicity and completely wack sensuality of "The Great Gig in the Sky," as well as the entirely trippy, hippy and self-consciously stoned energy of "Money." Jim Augustine '01 and Elizabeth Waterhouse '00 deserve special notice for their performance Saturday of the powerful and extremely moving duet to "Time:" showing unique awareness of each other's smallest movements, their two bodies moved virtually as one as they danced and romanced across the stage.

The only thing that rivaled the choreography (and the excellent staging and execution of Gandara's choreography) was the light design; the Mainstage has never been awash in so much color. A veteran Harvard light designer, McGee outdoes himself in Dark Side of the Moon. Using virtually every lighting technique possible, McGee incorporates backlights, sidelights, audience-sweeping spotlights, an overwhelming carousels of colors, shadows, purple moons and spinning pinwheels of light to illuminate every angle and curve of the bodies pulsating on the stage. At moments, the lights are so grandiose that they threaten to overshadow the dancers themselves; for the most part, however, McGee has a keen eye for tasteful spectacle and a smart awareness of all the beautiful ways to illuminate moving bodies.

In the end, though, it's all about the dancing, and it's a damn good thing Adler and Minyard beat those 20 long years of horrible odds to bring this sweeping, gorgeous spectacle to light. The hypnotizing waves of bodies in motion, and the pulsating madness of Pink Floyd's beats joined in ways crazy and serene, creating the single best student production I've ever seen on the Mainstage. The tremendous amount of dance talent on this campus came as a welcome and all-too-belated surprise to me; it's about time Harvard dancers received the venues, publicity and support they so obviously deserve. Minyard, Adler and all their fine dancers have awoken many dance-illiterati to the beauty of the art, an effort that won't soon be forgotten.