Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

Victoria Masters ©2025  

Can sacred rituals still exist in a profane and de-sensitized culture“ That is the question that kept occurring to me as I watched Motley Dance's "I Just Want to See You Underwater." Choreographer Elizabeth Motley attributes the work's inspiration to water-color hallucinations while suffering from a bout of encephalitis. But the back story is irrelevant to the experience of "Underwater" which is a some times frustrating, haunting, evocative, and memorable work of art. Staged in the Center for Performing Research, Motley Dance explores the myths of water, memory, death, and freedom. 

"Underwater" used the full range of CPR's space by beginning in the lobby with a prelude of sorts. Standing in front of a floor covered in powder, it all began with one dancer. Her movements alternated between fluid and spastic as she rolled around in the chalk. Her body and face became covered in this ghost-like powder which invoked a sense of a death mask and shroud. After the movement was complete the dancer stood up and walked away. The audience was then ushered to walk past the white set and toward the actual performance space. As we moved to the next room, the overwhelming scent of baby powder hits the nose. What was given the feel of death now had the scent of youth of life and vitality. There are several moments in "Underwater' where an emotional shift happens between what is initially experienced and then what is triggered in the senses on second look. It is surely the mark of artistic simplicity in taking every day items and transforming them into something through a ritual and then watching another transformation occur over time. 

Victoria Masters ©2025  

In the actual performance space, the audience is set up on steel bleachers amidst a wide white space. Images of water were projected on to the walls as aquatic, sparse music chimes in. On the floor was another dancer who was laying on her stomach and pressed against a pile of blue ribbons. The ribbons looked like rivulets of water and then started to resemble blue wings as the dancer seemed to awake. She drowns herself in the ribbons, as her body is completely covered and then frees herself by shaking off the ribbons. 

Motley plays with theme of being submerged and then re-emerging from the waters of memory. The company doesn't evoke stories as much as mechanical gestures that are moments in time. Elizabeth Motley shows her artistic prowess by serving as choreographer/director and dancer in this multimedia adventure. She has assembled a talented young cast of explosive dancers with Meredith Fages, Lea Fulton, and Josselyn Levinson Dustin invoking different aspects of what appears to be the same person's memory and spiritual revelation. 

At one of the piece's key turning points a dancer was surrounded by her three split selves who were holding white pitchers. They tipped the pitchers over and baptized the main character. But instead of water, hard white beads showered the dancer and spread across the floor. The main character thrashed around as images of looking up from the bottom of the ocean flow by across the wall. The beads gave a sense of being of hitting the ocean floor, the bottom point in a spiritual crisis or illness. But then the beads were swept away with blue mops. After the performance, I picked up one of these beads and was surpirsed to discover that they were actually uncooked Lima beans and navy beans. What had been a symbol of a watery grave was transformed into a sign of nurturing, planting, and growth. 

It's very difficult to review contemporary dance because each person will take away from it what they came in with and were thinking about at the time. That is true in most cases of art but without words or set stories, dance and music are a more subjective study that dependent upon the feelings of each audience who comes into contact with. In the performance I attended I brought along a dancer who trained in various contemporary forms of movement. He picked up on the mechanical repetition and a feel of a young piece that is perhaps a bit too earnest and serious. What struck him was both the technical detail and artistic focus, but also a lack of joy to enacting the movements that often comes from determination to get everything right and make it. I agreed but also found Motley doing a very difficult balancing act of transforming memory and illness into a moment of spiritual redemption.

"Underwater" should be seen by both fans of contemporary dance and novices. The images and the transformations will stay with you long after the final bow. Next time you are swimming, bathing, washing your hands, or engaging with water on any level, it will be hard not to recall and have a moment as your memory and water flow together.