'MonTage à Trois': Dancers give motion to other arts

Dance is often called music in motion. Jeanne Ruddy Dance also set paintings in motion in

MonTage à Trois

last weekend at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' Hamilton Building, as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. There was much to like about

MonTage

, although it is not a piece of "dance, music, and painting" as billed, and also had to contend with a sometimes frustrating physical environment.

The company's first site-specific work, set to music by Debussy and Satie, paid homage to three themes: France in the 1910s and '20s, Philadelphia painter Elizabeth Osborne (who made a cameo at the end of the piece), and various famous works of art.

The hour-long world premiere opened with seven dancers preening on the Hamilton Building's center staircase before leading audience members up and through the Annenberg and Tuttleman Galleries. They became paint, painters, and paintings. They posed in slim Moulin Rouge-evoking costumes, a feather atop each woman's head, a top hat on each man's. They danced against the pillars of a gallery, donned brightly pigmented unitards and tights, and threw ribbons of colorful fabric, like paint, onto a canvas.

Much of the dance was presented in front of a multimedia presentation by Ellen Fishman-Johnson of Osborne's paintings. In the video, a painting turned to water, one picture morphed into another, canvases became kaleidoscopic images. A painting of two girls lounging in brightly colored robes was mirrored by a pair of dancers in similar robes playfully frolicking in front of the screen.

In a gallery at the front of the building, dancers struck poses from familiar works, while Broad Street traffic glittered through the window shades. In the clearest reference, dancers held hands and formed Matisse's Dance. They performed a folk dance, clapping, snapping, and shouting, "Opa! PAFA! PIFA!" Gabrielle Revlock, in a long, sparkly navy blue dress, danced with a large hoop, à la Renoir or Picasso, hula-hooping it around her waist and neck and holding it regally overhead. Dancers even addressed Osborne's nudes: A trio of women wore flesh-toned, revealing unitards.

While likable, MonTage à Trois, despite the museum location, wasn't a literal presentation of dance, music and visual arts. The performance was presented in large, empty galleries; the only paintings were those the dancers alluded to and those in the video. And despite those open spaces, it was sometimes difficult to see well, particularly when dancers performed against large supporting pillars that blocked some views.

In a post-performance discussion, Ruddy said she wanted to do MonTage à Trois again, next time on a standard stage. I think it will lose little outside the museum.

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