By Bob Hicks
Mr. and Mrs. Scatter spent Friday night — or at least a short part of it — at BodyVox for the opening performance of Obstacle Allusions, Eric Skinner’s new half-hour dance for Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble.
It was the second recent new contemporary dance piece in town in which the music was an essential and equal partner to the dancemaking, defining and pushing the ideas as much as the choreography itself. (The first was Jim McGinn’s Gust for TopShakeDance, a piece that was woven inseparably with Loren Chasse’s score based on field recordings of the sounds of wind.) In Obstacle Allusions the music isn’t original: it’s taken from works by Haydn, Aarvo Part and the film composer Ennio Morricone.
But the performance — by pianist Bill Crane, who is always an enlightenment and a pleasure to hear — was a highlight of the evening and a welcome reminder of the essential partnership of music and physical movement in dance.