"Descent" by Kinetic Light

Descent is based on a romantic love story of Greek mythical figures Venus and Andromeda. The two dancers, Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson perform most of the show in wheelchairs. The show includes lighting and projections such as custom optics to create lightning environment and shadows that tell stories. They perform on a very unique stage, which was built with several hills and curves. The center of the stage is the summit of the ramp, of which the dancers climb to and from. After doing some research, I discovered that the show’s ramp-like stage was specifically designed by Kinetic light as sort of a “choreographed object”. Kinetic Light is a collective of disabled artists interested in the intersection of disability, dance, technology, and identity. But, the ramp was originally developed in collaboration with Sara Henderson, Yevgeniya Zastavker, and the student team at Olin College. In the upper left corner of the stage, there is an extreme steep peak which provides resistance (by gravity) as the dancers roll upward. However, there are also some sections of the ramp which require strength from the dancers to hold themselves up.

Every time they glide on the ramps, the motion of their rolling evokes a wide spectrum of emotions and character. In particular, I was fascinated by how the loud, bass sound effects lined up very timely with the wheelchairs rolling. It demonstrated the integration of the visual aesthetics with the impactful audio. Additionally, “the live sounds of the dancers and chairs moving through space and on the ramp has been amplified into the soundscape of the room to enhance both the auditory and felt-sensory material of DESCENT”. This immersive and multi-sensory experience created for audience members seems to be a focus of all artists working at EMPAC. Speaking of this unparalleled atmosphere, the lighting scenes in the background were the most pivotal, undervalued parts of the entire show. I believe it was established to be outer space with scattered stars throughout. The two dancers would form a pose/position together with or without their wheelchairs. The symbol they made would then appear to match the shape of the constellation of stars in the background. This kind of elegant symmetry appeared to occur naturally, and blended in with Kinetic Light’s theme of the “intersection of disability, dance, technology, and identity” very well.  All four of those elements were vivid in the overall performance, but more specifically in these examples provided.

To be honest, I was not a big fan of the slow scenes under the bridge. At first it was cool and unique to see them move and rise up from the bridge with the wheelchairs. After a while though, it seemed very repetitive and a bit unnecessary. For example, in one of these scenes, Alice Sheppard would perform a slow dance above, below, and around the ramp. Not so long after, Laurel Lawson would perform a very similar set. I understand how they might be feeding off of each other’s emotions and patterns, but it still came off as tedious. I much more appreciated the conjoined scenes where Alice and Laurel danced together, with each other, as well as off of each other.

All in all, I enjoyed the event to a much greater extent than I thought I would. The emotional content and conceptual foundations of the show were matched by innovative technical design elements to “gesture toward a sense of perpetual motion”. I was engaged during each scene. I was fascinated by every unique move they made. I was enthralled by the lightning and technological effects. A show I will not forget!