Words of Meaning

The title of Catherine Tharin’s latest production, “In the Wake of Yes,” is a reference to “Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy,” an inner monologue on womanhood and sexuality, from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Tharin matches the tone of this work as she picks up on an exuberant string of “yeses” from that text. Her witty series of dances explores romance and its complications. At the center of the show is a film by Lora Robertson that lifts the dancers out of the tiny East Village stage and transports them (and us) to scenes of contemporary New York City. Tharin, who danced with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company from 1988 to 1994, gives us a rare look at the Hawkins tradition, both in the movement style and commitment to artistic collaboration. In addition to Robertson’s film, In the Wake of Yes features original music played live by Joel Forrester and audio compositions by Allan Hunter.

Performance

“In the Wake of Yes,” choreography by Catherine Tharin, film by Lora Robertson

Place

Presented by The Bang Group, Arts on Site, New York, NY, June 6, 2025

Words

Karen Hildebrand

Jack Murphy and Dylan Baker in Catherine Tharin’s “In the Wake of Yes.” Photograph by Julie Lemberger

Tharin’s rendering of Hawkins’ dance vocabulary takes a bit of getting used to. Martha Graham’s first male dancer and husband, when he branched out to start his own company, developed a more subtle version of Graham’s famously dramatic contraction. Hawkins scholar Katherine Duke says he preferred to engage the muscles only as much as is needed. By minimalizing effort, he made the movement look soft. “For some, Mr. Hawkins’ subtleties in dynamics are in too even a key,” noted Anna Kisselgoff in an otherwise positive review for the New York Times in 1983.

“In the Wake of Yes” occurs in ten sections that flow from one to the next. Their titles give hints as to context: “Jenny’s Elegant Dream,” “Toward Yes,” “Yes, maybe no,” for example. The first section is a soundscape of church bells, falling rain, and birdsong. We’re able to hear rather than see the landscape four dancers will soon inhabit. In “Hannah in the Middle,” Dylan Baker, Hannah Kearney, and Jack Murphy flirtatiously vie for the attention of an offstage presence (a camera?) as much as for each other. Their steps are a compendium of classical modern dance postures and patterns that coalesce into such street activities as a quick game of rock-paper-scissors, disco dancing, aerobics exercise class, and a display of biceps curls that calls up strongman-at-the-beach cartoons. At the end, the two men lie down in a spooning position. Kearney slips between them, setting all three bodies rolling across the floor like toppled bowling pins.

Dylan Baker and Jenny Levy in Catherine Tharin’s “In the Wake of Yes.” Photograph by Julie Lemberger

When Jenny Levy enters for her solo, “Jenny’s Elegant Dream,” we hear the first of the Joyce text excerpts in Patrick Fitzgerald's Irish brogue. Levy’s pace is meditative, allowing us to see the precise bloom of a lunge, her arms reaching out like flower stamens. This blends easily into a duet (“Jack and Jenny in Nature”) when Murphy enters the space to echo her final phrases. Once Robertson’s film “Dark Behind the Glass” begins, I realize this generous introduction to each of the dancers serves a structural purpose. After these five opening sections, I’m familiar with the way the dancers move, so that when the camera pans out and they become part of a larger landscape, I recognize the patterns and phrasing. Movement that struck me as a little old-fashioned on an unadorned stage, now looks completely natural. Perched on sunken pillars of old waterside piers, the dancers could be cormorants drying their wings. In the city, they join a flock of pigeons. We see them moving inside a subway elevator through the transparent doors, while a woman’s voice announces Brooklyn bound A-train stops.

The film features images of the Queensborough Bridge that spans the East River. At one point, the shadow of the Roosevelt Island aerial tram travels across the face of red brick apartment buildings. For an instant the shadow is superimposed with an image of Levy, back arched, blue silk scarf billowing. She becomes the figurehead of a surreal ship sailing across the sky. The image dissolves as quickly as it appeared, leaving me with the feeling I dreamt it.

The camera zooms in for a striking solo by dancer Daniel Morimoto (who is not part of the stage ensemble) on the breakwaters of Rockaway Beach. He crouches and reaches, curves into an arch, confidently navigating the slippery boulders as surely as if they were a stable Marley dance floor. For a moment, the filmmaker doubles Morimoto’s image so that it appears he’s emerging, amphibious, from the water. Later, the dancers, seen through the windows of an elevated subway train car, echo his arching. Fitzgerald recites a line about a lover’s kiss.

From left: Dylan Baker, Jack Murphy, Hannah Kearney, Jenny Levy in Catherine Tharin’s “In the Wake of Yes.” Photograph by Julie Lemberger

When we return to live dance onstage once the film closes, it’s as if I’m seeing with new eyes. The final four sections of “In the Wake of Yes” seem more powerfully animated. Kearney and Levy are positively fizzy in “Hannah and Jenny Drunk on Bach,” their unison work renders them as a doubletake. Baker bursts in on them from the back wall, one hand covering his face. Is he guarding his identity, or is he giving them privacy? He takes a dramatic side fall to the floor—yes, the same fall you learned in Graham 101. When Murphy enters for their duet, “Toward Yes,” Baker is prickly, and here is where we hear the operatic Bloom lines spoken by Michele Clayton: “I love roses. God in heaven there’s nothing like nature.” Murphy takes a running leap into Baker’s arms. The two men are unabashedly in love. The quartet “Yes, maybe no” is full of droll wit as Levy butts her head into Baker’s chest and Kearney slings Murphy over her shoulder. Molly Bloom is chanting, “Yes!” at an increasing tempo and volume.

A final duet, “Patience,” with Kearney and Murphy, is lush and classical, full of partnered turns. The piano solo supplies the yearning of repeated shifts from major to minor chords. At the end, Kearney is alone onstage, spinning in a dizzying dervish whirl. She stops to visibly clear her head before settling into a demi-lunge, the final pose, strong and independent (defiant?) as the lights dim.

Karen Hildebrand

Karen Hildebrand is former editorial director for Dance Magazine and served as editor in chief for Dance Teacher for a decade. An advocate for dance education, she was honored with the Dance Teacher Award in 2020. She follows in the tradition of dance writers who are also poets (Edwin Denby, Jack Anderson), with poetry published in many literary journals and in her book, Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books). She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Originally from Colorado, she lives in Brooklyn.

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