Hotel Pool, 2004 [Enlarge in New Window]

Headlong Dance Theater: Hotel Pool

Headlong Dance Theater is making waves, literally. Collaboratively helmed by Andrew Simonet, David Brick, and Amy Smith, the Bessie Award-winning troupe is diving into Hotel Pool, a site-specific dance-theater piece performed in and around hotel swimming pools. By turns sublime, hilarious, and profound, Hotel Pool is a meditation on vulnerability, competition, and the power of memory over time. When asked what drew the company to such an unusual venue for their new work, co-director Andrew Simonet explained, "Swimming pools are such places of intense memory and experience. It's this primal thing you go through as a child, and you're taken right back there every time you smell the chlorine."

The three collaborators have taken advantage of a summer heat wave to start working on Hotel Pool. Along with their dancers, they've rehearsed at both public pools in inner city Philadelphia ("Chock full of screaming kids," according to Simonet) and at suburban backyard watering holes that present an entirely different environment. Beginning with simple phrasing and partnering, both partially and fully submerged, the company has created movement derived from the natural power and danger of water. "It's a lovely situation," says Simonet, "but you're also a minute away from being dead. So we've been looking at images of the body being really still, or at a string of bodies being moved through the water by another person." Layered along with these images come theatrical allusions to what Simonet calls "the vulnerability of the whole hotel situation. The idea that you might end up in the pool next to someone with whom you just negotiated a business deal, and you're both basically naked and wet."

In addition, Simonet says Hotel Pool is about a specific sense of luxury and excess that swimming pools exemplify. "The idea of 'knowing it's there' has this particular American feel to it," the choreographer explains. "It's this perfectly maintained space that doesn't, for the most part, get used. The point is being able to say: 'At any moment I might put down the laptop, rip off my clothes, and jump in this pool.' "

Since its formation in 1992, the renegade Philadelphia troupe has tackled everything from Star Wars to car alarms, suburbia to panic attacks. And in recent works like 2001's Subirdia and 2002's Gracelessness, the company's work has taken on added pathos and depth without ever losing the wry humor that has defined them from the start. "There's a place where what's funny and what's beautiful, and what's insightful and wise come together," Simonet explains. "And there are levels of humor that are incredibly dark and complex."

Headlong's involvement in dance goes beyond just making new work each year. The company has also contributed immensely to the contemporary dance scene in Philadelphia through its inception of Dance Theater Camp (formerly Dance Camp), which offers free classes, improvisational workshops, and performances for local dance and theater artists. "On some level, all art is local," Simonet says of the company's commitment to their community. "We really care about Philadelphia as a place."

For Headlong, Hotel Pool is about more than just making a new dance piece. As Simonet explains, "The other idea behind it is that it's an end-run around the usual touring problem. There are hotel pools everywhere." The company hopes to take the work across America and even perform Hotel Pool while on the road with other works set in theaters. That adventurousness may be part of the reason Headlong has been so consistently catchy with audiences and critics, both in and outside of Philadelphia.

And according to Simonet, their penchant for taking dance into uncharted territory is making their work together even stronger. As the choreographer puts it, "Our collaboration is just getting richer and richer."

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THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Performance > Dance | Americana | The Built Environment | Labor | Mid-Atlantic | 2002