This work is distinctly sculptural in the way Varone molds bodies together into tableaux within space to produce enduring images—archetypes of today. The work begins with eight still, standing bodies dispersed to fill the stage, backgrounded by a blue-lit backdrop. The subtle lighting by Jane Cox initially holds the figures in dimness. 

As the separate bodies come together, golden-tinged light illuminates the dancers’ faces. They quickly move apart and again reconfigure, continually changing and moving through space. They begin to gesture a legible language—three dancers raise fists in unity, a group folds their arms across their chests forming a wall of judgement, a woman covers her mouth while she clasps her gut. Then, with handshakes and a reach toward another’s arm or shoulder, a feeling of interdependence emerges and they form a circle. They disperse and form a diagonal. They disperse and form another line… and another. Eventually everyone falls faced down, inching forward on bellies only to retreat backward. They merge, straining to boost each other upright, some remaining on the ground to serve as support for others. Assuming a variety of postures, the group strains forward—arms, heads, and gaze pointing toward a communal goal. 

The energy swells with jumping, lifting, twirling—calling up images of Winslow Homer’s boats tossed in turbulent waters or migrants clutching each other in overcrowded dinghies seeking safe shores. The images strike emotional chords; they feel current. Varone, in the post-show curtain chat, shared, “The piece was built with specifics but also with ambiguity so that everyone can find their own meaning.” In a YouTube video from the company archives, Varone described those specifics. In 2005, Varone, searching to spark a new creative process for this work, picked up the day’s newspaper and began looking for striking photographs. The dancers brought the photographic images to life, imbuing some 60 of them with embodied physicality and spatial relationships. Varone later layered Arvo Pärt’s religious score onto the movement. 

Varone, a recognized master choreographer (recipient of 11 Bessies and renowned for mentoring emerging artists in the craft), builds a classic scaffolding for this dance. The choreographic leitmotifs—the circle, the gestures, the diagonal—reprised multiple times, ground us in a (loose) narrative. The eight dancers come across as real people. At any given moment they slip from everyday humanness into a casual gesture or a full outpouring of dancing virtuosity—giving the dance its power to tug at our own humanity.  

Then Varone dissolves the dance with poignant grace. The dancers form their circle. They disperse and form a diagonal toward the upstage right corner. With sacred formality, two dancers turn around to face the row behind them, and stepping apart, they form a gateway for the others to pass through. Then the final two dancers re-form the line and depart.