Security Concerns in Travels to Distant Shores

BY ROSLYN SULCAS Published: November 1, 2005

Imaginary voyages to Southeast Asia linked two short but satisfying pieces on a program of intelligently conceived, image-filled dance by the choreographers Paz Tanjuaquio and Joyce S. Lim at St. Mark’s Church on Friday night.

Paz Tanjuaquio in "Thunder Against 1,2,3" at St. Mark’s Church. Tom Brazil

First came “Thunder Against 1.2.3.,” a solo choreographed and danced by Ms. Tanjuaquio, who was born in the Philippines and has worked in New York since 1990. An official-looking security guard (wearing a badge marked “Dance Authority”) checked bags before lights dimmed and brightened upon Ms. Tanjuaquio, moving with sharply delineated precision to knocking, clanking sounds. The stretched, geometric clarity of the movement, sustained throughout the three sections of the work, is Ms. Tanjuaquio’s strongest asset — along with a mellifluous voice that renders the spoken sections of the work (a poem and diary extracts about a trip to Cambodia) rather more than the sum of their parts. A number of short films (variously by Brian Dean Richmond, Todd Richmond and Ms. Tanjuaquio) accompany the solo, their fleeting, mostly obscured images offering a counterpoint to the sharp clarity of the dance.

In the last section, a mildly amusing spoof of a CNN-style report (subject: “Is dance good for America?”) precedes a more urgent solo, watched by two impassive security guards. Her arms sweeping from side to side, legs whipping her body through the beautiful open space of St. Mark’s, Ms. Tanjuaquio suggested the necessity of art in frightening times.

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