THE magazine, Santa Fe, NM
May 2001

Like six daughters of Spider Grandmoter, Murray Spalding's radiant young dancers spun six precise and austere mandala patterns at the April 3 performance at SITE Santa Fe. The geometry and dynamics of each pattern varied. Quiet and cerebral, the work used a clean, classical, and elegant modern dance voacabulary. The performers stood erect yet moved from low centers of gravity. They seldom touched or glanced at each other. Evren Celimli's rapid, synthesized music interworve another layer of quiet and lively intention and dictated only enough time for downward rather than upward jumps. Each woman sprang and rebounded the way a spider plummets its silk when the web is disturbed.

After 25 years of choreographing and presenting dance in noted performance spaces, Spalding, the recipient of prestigious grants, has plighted her artistic troth to the spirit. "I like to think of my dancers as planets revolving around the sun," Spalding has said, describing her use of the concept of mandalas as "kaleidoscopic" because the dancers repeat slowly evolving patterns with intricate rhythms, always returning to the center. The sense of concentration required for each design exacted a performance price, though, conveying, like heavenly bodies themselves, an impenetrable sense of detachment.

At one point, two dancers demonstrated the complexity of moving to different beats, with every beat in each mandala having a distinct movement. For example, arms outstretched at the sides like semaphores, arms bent upward at the elbows to form the letter W, or arms bent and drawn in to the waist, one palm curved over the other.

Crowds thronged the large gallery space; more people stood than sat. In fact, the unfolding patterns of Spalding's choreography would have best been seen from above or on steeply raked risers. On a flat surface such as SITE offers, a mirrored ceiling reflecting the dancers' patterns would have greatly aided the performance. Subtle lighting did suggest sunrise or the glow of dusk. An imaginal shift might have set the dancers along the Aegean shore, or in an ancient Greek temple, chiffon culottes rippling, spectators ringing the dancers on stone risers.

Spalding's mandalas join the ancient tradition of group rituals that build community and honor spirit. Some meditators in the audience loved the concert. Other spectators felt excluded, commenting that the dance was too introspective to be considered a performance. I later viewed the performance video and was enthralled--the ceraman, standing on a ladder, had captured the hypnotic precision of each mandala.

Janet Eigner