HQ REVIEW: Pack Dance presents Disruption

The May 2nd premiere of Disruption at The Marcelle Theater in St. Louis’s Grand Center arts district marked a notable milestone for Pack Dance as their first concert since officially rebranding from Consuming Kinetics Dance Company in the summer of 2024. With over 15 years of history and evolution at its heels, Pack Dance may be most recognized for its educational programming at its home studio in Central West End that caters most notably to adult dancers of all backgrounds and abilities in dance. Pack Dance’s annual spring dance concert, presented by its professional and junior companies of dancers, has built a tradition for itself of tackling topical, often darker political themes. In the past three years alone its concerts have centered around gender politics, gun violence, and climate change. This time around, the six choreographers chose to cast an even wider net, tackling a much wider range of themes centered around societal, cultural, and biological disruptors. 

The evening featured seven new works by six choreographers. The first, “Bidding Farewell Enthusiasm” by Logan Guerra, reflected on the effects of capitalism and burnout on the creative process through disaffected jazz hands and a barrage of business suits patterning their way through the space. “Absorbed” by Kevin Lee came next, surging with angst and occasional moments of pantomime to shed a perspective on addiction that spotlights the often harsh response our communities have to those suffering from addiction. Another work by Guerra, “Juvenescence,” highlighted how we push children to grow up too quickly, offering up a series of abstracted pedestrian motifs performed with an intentional monotony by Pack Dance’s junior company.

Samanvita Kasthuri’s “Krtghna,” the fourth dance of the evening, was easily one of the highlights of the concert. Blending contemporary dance with elements of Kathak and Bharatanatyam, the work follows Mother Earth (portrayed by Kasthuri herself) and her complicated journey with mankind and its overconsumption of her resources. Story telling is a vital element of this work, and it’s something that Kasthuri crafts exceptionally well while still making space for an innovative and enticing movement vocabulary. An ensemble of five dancers, each representing one of the five natural elements in Hindu philosophy, circles a sleeping Mother Earth in a series of eerie gestures that attach themselves assertively to the rhythms of the music. As Mother Earth awakens, she exudes a sense of power and confidence through grounded footwork and a command for the space around her. With introductions out of the way, the music lightens and the story unfolds more rapidly - humanity in the form of a baby enters as an imagined entity in the space and is cared for lovingly by Mother Earth and the five elements. There is a mood of warmth and nourishment reflected in the gentle, rolling movements, theatrical pantomime, and well saturated lighting. Yet, this radiance and abundance is quickly swallowed with a sense of betrayal as humanity takes more than Mother Earth could generously offer. Movements turn sharper, larger, and heavier, with percussive feet and decisive gestures as Mother Earth burns the world around them. The dance carries such narrative clarity and overt symbolism one might expect of a folk tale or religious parable, offered up through a blended movement aesthetic that feels at once precisely crafted and organically performed.

Another highlight of the show was Sophia Spectre’s “The American Nightmare,” an absurdist, overt commentary on our political state and ignorance of climate change. The work, a blend of theater and dance, unfolds with the sharp satire a political cartoon. Dancers are dressed in t-shirts with labels to identify what they represent, while others appear in masks portraying US presidents. The absurdity is pointed yet undoubtedly hilarious - The Internet performs Tik Tok dances behind her ringlight while Conspiracy Theorist discusses lizard people in the government, Corruption pirouettes across the stage to perform a duet with Donald Trump, Kamala Harris steals the show with a coconut tree remix. Amidst all of the chaos is the humble Climate Scientist, whose constant pleas and warnings of the planet’s impending doom fall onto deaf ears until he is eventually beaten into silence. A lyrical solo by Common Sense (portrayed by Leia Riehl) to The End of The World by Skeeter Davis draws a more pensive mood amidst the chaotic babel. For a work that is incredibly political, Spectre takes care to make jabs at both sides of our two party system for the lack of action against climate change. The work ends on a softer, more thoughtful note with a dance to “We’re All Gonna Die” by Jesse Welles featuring Hope at front and center, bringing the faintest glimmer of optimism to a work otherwise brimming with cynicism with its final lines: “We’re all gonna die, but love is free.”

Following Lexi Lewis’ “The 7th Spark,” a dance about how AI taking control over our lives as told through ripples of precise symmetry and occasional pulses of disorientation, comes Arica Nyamsi’s “Hidden in Plain Sight.” Nyamsi establishes both important background knowledge and the mood of the work with an informational video about endocrine disrupting chemicals that grows progressively ominous as the narrator’s pitch gradually distorts lower, the video blurs, and unsettling music fades into the background. The work officially begins with a wall of dancers, the largest cast of the evening by far, performing simple mundane gestures ranging from cleaning their face and brushing their teeth to cleaning windows and adjusting their clothes. The message is clear from the beginning - endocrine disruptors exist in nearly all of the products we come in contact with throughout our day. The dance slowly zooms closer down the microscope at the body’s response to these chemicals, with dancers blocking one another’s movements. Blacklights begin to uncover glowing markings and handprints on the dancers’ bodies, showing the way these chemicals leach into the skin without notice. The concept is clear, yet it is abstracted in a way that allows the audience to remain invested in the movement. Nyamsi’s collaborative process brings together quite a wide array of unique movement styles that all rest against each other. Most notable is a solo by Theron Steele, highlighting his style of animation and hip hop with contemporary aesthetics to bring to life the chemical and biological processes of these disruptors.

One of Pack Dance’s greatest strengths is its ability to make dance accessible to audiences who may not have as much experience with concert dance. It is all too common to hear audiences leaving dance performances remarking “it was lovely but I don’t really get dance” - yet audiences left Disruption boasting about dance’s power to share such deep, clear messages and stories. In a time when dance often encrypts its meaning behind a wall of symbolism that sometimes requires a degree in ballet history and a certification in Laban Movement Analysis to unravel, it was refreshing to see works that cater to the masses without giving way entirely to the fast-fashion of commercial aesthetics. The thoughtful attention and care each artist devoted to conveying their messages made for an impactful evening of dance, leaving audiences with a lasting sense of reflection and serving as a testament to dance’s ability to challenge thought.