Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

Amanda Baggs, an autistic woman who is highly conscious of a massive gap in understanding between neurotypical individuals and those who perceive and communicate differently, has taken advantage of technology to invite others into her world. Using text-to-speech technology, video editing, and YouTube, Baggs creates and disseminates a series of short films which successfully bridge that gap. Her work has inspired the founders of dre.dance to evoke the experiences of autistic individuals in their new work, beyond.words, which was presented recently at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. The resulting dance piece is a poignant exploration of a reality which remains, nevertheless, out of reach for the majority of its audience.

In addition to drawing on Baggs' video compositions, choreographers Andrew Palermo and Taye Diggs incorporate typical behaviors into the dance's movement vocabulary. Among these behaviors are various kinds of 'stimming' -- repetitive, often unconscious physical movements such as rocking, spinning, or the flicking of fingers, which serve to stimulate the person performing the action. Diggs and Palermo also cite a form of therapy called psychomotor patterning, which involves manipulating the patient's body through specific, sequential patterns in order to stimulate neurological development. Using gestures derived from these sources, Palermo and Diggs have created a harmonious -- yet immediately recognizable -- abstraction of the external behaviors associated with autism.

Capturing the internal life of autistic individuals is a far greater challenge. According to the program notes, the choreographers are trying to offer an "interpretation of the battle between maelstrom and inner peace" which autistic individuals experience.

beyond.words is performed by a very capable company of dancers: Janelle Abbot, Christina Black, Vince DeGeorge, Colby Q. Lindeman, Kyle Mullins, Susan Philipp, Tommy Scrivins, Joshua Shutkind, and Lindsay Wood. The piece itself is divided into three movements. The first part features a small child and his mother who struggle between quelling and participating in the anarchic vibrations of the chorus. The second part focuses on the inner world of the dancers, who react to the increasingly dissonant exterior world represented by the piece's soundtrack. In the final part, as the whole chorus increasingly moves in congress with the others, two dancers finally make a physical and emotional connection to each other.

The design elements of beyond.words are clean and simple. Renea Goforth has created off-white, two piece costumes for the bulk of the nine-person company, while setting off two performers -- the child who begins the performance and his adult alter-ego -- in bright white scrubs. The company performs in front of a white cyclorama, the space devoid of any object besides the human body. All of this means that the world with which the dancers in beyond.words are interacting is portrayed by sound alone, ranging from silence to instrumental music to a bewildering sound collage of speaking and singing voices.

If beyond.words' purpose is -- like Amanda Baggs' -- to nonjudgmentally invite outsiders into the inner world of individuals with autism, their efforts fall short. Rather than showing a beautiful alternative way of perceiving the world, beyond.words portrays it as painful; moreover, the structure of the piece, which culminates with the physical connection of two dancers, suggests that a neurotypical response to the world is the most desirable. Nevertheless, Palermo and Diggs have made a fascinating and truly moving portrayal of autism. As a dance created with the intention of raising awareness of autism, dre.dance's beyond.words is highly successful.