Invisible Cities: Dance Performance by Dunya McPherson

In Italo Calvino’s enigmatic and provocative book ‘Invisible Cities’ , the source for this performance’s title , an aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo sit in a garden. The Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities has seen in his travels around the empire. As the tales unspool, the Khan knows the fantastical places are more than they appear. Dunya McPherson’s Invisible Cities is a rich layering of dance-on-film and live dance that ponders the theme of decay and transformation. Worlds crumbling and worlds emerging.

Drawing on the visceral dance art stream of Japanese Butoh with it roots in post-Hiroshima trauma  as well as the mystical movement traditions of Sufism, McPherson, a Juilliard trained, NEA acclaimed dancer and choreographer brings stark and soft images of a our world morphing. She entwines the eternal gentleness of pouring water from beautiful vessels in a ceremonial quietude with vivid, elaborately costumed abstract movement of yearning and awakening in fleeting seasons that suggest portraits of Frido Kahlo or Botticelli’s ‘Minerva”. With segments of contemplative slow movement and otherworldly passages of vibration, the mood meanders between calm and disquiet. The impression is exotic, rich.

Playing on video monitors as a counter line are dance films of McPherson slowly traversing the massive under-corridors of MBL’s Lillie Building  and empty auditorium (videography by Erika Hahn and Yiwen Chen), a desert mesa top in a wild wind, and a sun-drenched forest (videography by Ric Miccio). These worlds seem solid, but are they? The dance work ‘Invisible Cities’ asks, “What is solid? What is real?” And how do we feel in the midst of these questions.

Dunya McPherson, BFA, MA is a NYTimes critically acclaimed choreographer, NEA recipient, a pioneer in embodied mysticism, Sufi Master Teacher in Shattari lineage, academic educator, Juilliard alumna, author, and Founder of Dancemeditation™.  Through both her teaching and performance, Dunya has brought audiences and participants’ worldwide into the wonderment of deep-reaching, subtle, embodied self.