{"id":38267,"date":"2017-03-28T11:29:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T17:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=38267"},"modified":"2023-11-15T21:29:21","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T03:29:21","slug":"navigating-graham-browns-sonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/navigating-graham-browns-sonder\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating Graham Brown\u2019s Sonder"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Keanu Brady & full cast of a previous performance of You by Graham Brown, courtesy of the Sonder fb page<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Sonder<\/em>, a collaborative immersive dance theater experience choreographed and directed by Graham Brown and produced by Sackerson will run for two weekends at the Eagles Hall. This historic Salt Lake City site was built in 1911 and has served as a place to house social and cultural activities, provide medical services, and in the 1990s was reopened as a nightclub called The Bay. It is a space that feels both magical and neglected, begging to be used once again and become the holding place of stories.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0Sonder<\/em>, Brown uses material from his work\u00a0You<\/em>\u00a0which has had previous iterations: one as a proscenium stage piece set on a BYU student-performance group, and\u00a0the more recent one as an immersive experience in the Rose Wagner.\u00a0<\/a>Like the show this weekend, both versions included professional and university students.<\/p>\n

Modern Dance tends to move away from what is and what has come before. Sometimes that takes place in the construction of the body but it also means shifting how performances are presented. There have been several shows of late in Salt Lake City that have been housed (literally):\u00a0Nomad,\u00a0Dollhouse, and\u00a0Municipal Ballet at the McCune Mansion, not to mention those using outdoor space, like\u00a0The Mists\u00a0or\u00a0On Site at the SCERA\u00a0public pool. And, of course, these local examples come in context of ample national projects.<\/p>\n

Taking dance out of the theater has its hurdles; smaller audiences, ADA accessibility, and visibility (hello sight lines!). However, the possibilities of these spaces are too exciting to pass up, and using them creates new paradigms to explore and gives fresh context to the moving body.<\/p>\n

The challenge with\u00a0Sonder<\/em>\u00a0is the attempt, in this particular space, to show narrative with specific character development. What worked well at the Rose Wagner was sometimes lost at Eagles Hall. At the Rose, the audience was confined to one large space to experience the progression of plot and unfolding characters; at Eagles Hall we were directed to choose our own path and experience the scenes that we wanted. This was liberating, but also jarring, when plot points happened which were not developed by our own personal choices.<\/p>\n

This difficulty notwithstanding, the show is well crafted and has stunning moments. If you go, you might not experience the following, but I suppose that is the beauty of the idea: knowing that your choices led you to your favorite moments (a modern dance Magellan).<\/p>\n