AXIS integrates disabilities into seamless performance

ORONO – In 1987, Bonnie Lewkowicz was trying to choose a name for a new troupe that included dancers with and without disabilities. She looked to the wheels on her wheelchair for inspiration and chose AXIS, the turning point, where the spokes come together.

During AXIS’ performance Thursday night at the Maine Center for the Arts, eight dancers came together to stretch the boundaries of movement. Though wheelchairs and prosthetics were central to the performance, they became a seamless part of the dancers’ visual language.

The gleam of a spotlight on the metal of a wheelchair. A woman in a crimson dress and a flash of leg. The shock as a dancer slips off her leg, places it on stage and gently tips it over. The crash as a tower of folding chairs falls to the ground. The starry twinkle of light bulbs strung overhead.

AXIS stirred the senses with a show so rich with imagery, so fluid in movement that it may well have redefined contemporary dance for many in the audience.

The applause began before the lights came up, and after the first piece, “Suite Sans Suite” by Sonya Delwaide, it intensified. The arresting “Suite” explored relationships with grace and humor and ended with a bang as the dancers exited en masse, slamming a folding chair onto the ground in a gunshot staccato.

In the subtle and sensuous “Dust,” choreographed by Victoria Marks, touch gave movement and took it away. The nymph-like dancers ran and glided across the stage, bathed in an ethereal glow, reaching out for one another to find the object of their desire just out of their grasp.

“Flesh,” by artist and choreographer Ann Carlson, was as solid as “Dust” was delicate. Set to the birdlike calls and spoken word of Meredith Monk, the piece opened with dancers in brown coveralls, forming moving pyramids, their bodies stacked and interlocked.

The show wrapped up with Bill T. Jones’ vision of Schubert’s Fantasy in C Major. Playful and light, the piece showcased the elegance of the dancers’ movement and the ease in which they interacted.

Thursday night’s performance was technically flawless and artistically stunning. The only thing lacking was an audience – the MCA was barely a third full.

Too bad. If you missed AXIS, you missed a chance to see how compelling contemporary dance and improvisational movement can be.