Lisa Townsend's indifference and Mica Sigourney's MASTERWORK collectively illustrate the risks and the rewards of giving artists the support they need to experiment. Townsend and Sigourney are part of the Artist Residency Commissioning Program at CounterPULSE and have developed their dance theater pieces over the past several months. They get rehearsal space, “work-in-progress showings,” and a performance venue to make whatever they want. Some artists profit enormously from that freedom, while others use it strictly to indulge themselves. The double-bill of these two works, which concluded Sunday, cover both extremes.
Indifference uses dance theater to explore Albert Camus' The Stranger, the 1942 novel best known as an illustration of existentialism. The title character is Mersault, estranged because of his consummate apathy. Asked by his girlfriend Marie whether he wants to get married, he responds that it doesn't make any difference to him and they can if she wants to. More weightily, when he shoots an innocent man, he offers no explanation why and feels no remorse afterward.
