Kai Yu

DNCE 131.04
Professor Brunsvold Mercedes
11/08/2019

Clara Auditorium Fragmented Memories

TwoPoint4 presented Fragmented Memories from November 8th to the 9th pm at

Clara Auditorium. The key theme of the dance is about memory and ocean. The dance
made connections between crashing waves and memories. The dance told us how a past
experience can affect our current life. The whole dance Fragmented Memories draws
upon the stories and experiences from all of us. The two most shocking scenes were the
introduction and the third scene. In the introduction, the use of a lot of specific props
made the audience felt that they were in that unique story scene. Also, there were a lot of
interactions between dancers and audiences. These special interactions are not seen at
other dance concerts. The third scene of this dance concert was also very special. There
were a lot of conversations or confessions before each dance performance. This allows us
to understand the meaning of this dance.

The opening scene, by entering the theater audience can see a large blue cloth
hanging in the air. There is a woman in the center of this cloth. The audience and dancers
are all under this blue cloth. The bleu cloth analogy to the sea surface and the women in
the center is like the mother of the sea. When the dance performance began, the light in
the room become bleu then green. There were eight women dancers. As the dance began,
the movement of the dancers was sublime and rehearsed. The dance began with one
dancer in the center. She kneeled on the floor. Then, other dancers joined her. The
dancers almost glided across the dance floor as they twisted and turned. The dance was
characterized by a lot of throwing arms and kicking in the air. One of the dancers also
made an action to pick up something from the ground. She then stands over another
dancer before she ushers her back to the normalized dance routine with the rest of the
group. In the latter part of the dance, the dancers seemed to be feeling some kind of
breeze and made gestures of receiving it with open arms. One female dancer was facing t
he audience while the others faced the opposite direction. At this time, the blue cloth in
the sky began to fall, and the dancers led the audience to spread out to the edge. Dancers
invited audience to support the bleu cloth. The dancers in the middle of the blue cloth let
the audience shake the blue cloth together to form waves like waves. At this time, the
background music became a sound of the waves.

The third scene of the dance was very special. At the beginning, the three doors in
the rooms were open. There was a dancer standing next to each door. The middle door
dancer was breathing in deeply with her arms wide open while the rest looked the other
way almost indifferently. As the routine progressed, the dancers faced each other
throwing their arms widely as if to break down a wall. The movement in this scene was
more aggressive than in the opening scene, but the performance was just as passionate.
Then, other dancers join them. The dance involved a lot of bending and lying down. At
one point the dancers were in pairs, with one lying down and the partner standing over.
They then hold each other in support and gradually they both rise to their feet. Then a
group of female dancers in bathing suits came out, and everyone said the story of
themselves with the ocean. They were very happy to play together at the beach. Then
suddenly the lights dimmed, and the scene was over with background music had
become heavy.
 Those two scenes are very different. The opening scene tried to get the audience
into the story. The scene took advantage of the interaction between the surrounding
environment and the audience. Especially when the audience shakes the blue cloth
together. So, the dancers' movements were slow and gentle. In the third scene, The
audience has already been brought to the story, and the dancers need to present the
volatility of past memories. So, the movement in this scene was more aggressive than in
the opening scene.

Fragmented memories was one very special dance event. It combined storytelling
and dance. During the dance concert, there were a lot of conversations or confessions
before each dance performance. Let the audience understand the meaning behind these
dances. In particular the third scene, the dance told us that good memories can only stay
in the past, and the reality is often unsatisfactory.