Dance review: Co.ERASGA's What on EARTH spans climate-change cheerleading and volcanic eruptions
Ensemble works by Alvin Erasga Tolentino, Naishi Wang, and Alvin Collantes premiere in a captivating program dedicated to environmental stewardship
What on EARTH.
Co.ERASGA presents What on EARTH at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre to September 20
“ON THIS EARTH that we share, in our hearts we must care!” chant five dancers outfitted in grey sweatshirts, baggy gym shorts, and running shoes. It’s a mantra they repeat with cheerleader enthusiasm while moving in tight formations, hitting strong arm lines, and bearing keen grins.
This planetary pep squad is commanding the stage in Weathering Rhythms, a work by Toronto-based choreographer Naishi Wang that’s premiering as part of Co.ERASGA’s What on EARTH program. At the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, the ensemble piece is shown alongside two others: Co.ERASGA founding artistic director Alvin Erasga Tolentino’s Fire-Air-Water-Earth, and Berlin-based artist Alvin Collantes’s Bulkan. Together, the works speak to the power of dance as a way of cultivating environmental stewardship.
Weathering Rhythms, though it starts off simplistic, is well-executed by the dancers. By nature, the challenging choreography means one small misstep can really throw off the imagery being created—but the bulk of the routine here is clean as a whistle. Aside from a minor moment of disunity when the dancers are performing in a straight line centre-stage, they nail the synchronized energy of the routine, confidently whipping their arm angles into V and T shapes. With rhythmic stomping, clapping, fist pumping, and thigh slapping, they chant “Come on, let’s go!” and “Get, get to it, environmental rights!” throughout.
When eventually the dancers’ moves grow sloppy and tired, with sneakers dragging squeakily against the stage floor, it becomes an analogy for how depleting the fight for climate resiliency can be. At one point, they drop into a deep squat turned sideways to the audience with arms extended toward us, chanting “hah, hah, hah” sharply and jolting in sync, almost as if they’re firing weapons. Elsewhere, they start twitching violently, falling to the floor. Dancer Ysadora Dias’s whole body seems to reverberate, while Juan Villegas raises a shaky arm from his position crumpled on the ground. The energy is frantic and alarming.
A similar change of pace comes to fruition in Collantes’s Bulkan, which likens repressed feelings of rage and desire to a volcanic eruption. The dancers begin in a heap of bodies on the floor, limbs and heads moving with serpentine twists, while a cage rattles over composer Jun Suzuki’s soundtrack.
Partway through, Villegas seems to set off an eruption from where he’s standing, with the dancers surrounding him pushed circularly outward as if they’ve been hit by an invisible force field. He breaks into a captivating solo in which he claws desperately at the sky, teeth bared—and then he folds over into a bellowing, hair-raising scream, putting his entire being into the performance. Witnessing anger and desperation so openly, especially as it relates to environmental stewardship, is a refreshing change of pace from everyday life.
Another standout feature of Bulkan is the ingrained sense of community between the dancers. In one instance, they flow into a tight-knit circle, supporting each other and dipping their heads forward in a gossipy sort of way. Later on, there’s a stellar group section with off-the-wall energy; in unison, the dancers barrel into turning double-stag leaps, both legs bent as they travel through the air. Like Weathering Rhythms, there’s a strong emphasis on the need for connection and teamwork in fighting for climate justice.
What on EARTH.
Fire-Air-Water-Earth takes a bit of a departure from the other two works by incorporating multimedia elements. A floor-to-ceiling screen looms behind the dancers showing Pauline Adalid’s videography of natural elements juxtaposed with the human footprint—think glowing licks of fire, a plastic bag drifting through cerulean ocean water, a garbage truck dumping mounds of trash onto the ground, and an expansive plain of cracked, dry mud.
Over the past two decades, Tolentino has built up a reputation through Co.ERASGA with works that explore the relationship between humans and the environment. His first full-length solo for the company back in 2000, Sola, referenced the cycle of nature; and last fall’s anxiety-inducing Accumulation saw him heaving under a pile of trash in a disconcerting commentary on the environmental deterioration humans leave in their wake.
Tolentino continues depicting the current state of the world in Fire-Air-Water-Earth. When a projection of a shadowy tree looms against a grey sky, Dias backs against the wall and raises her arms, emulating its gnarled branches; and when sparks spatter and crack both onscreen and over the soundtrack (by Tolentino’s longtime collaborator, French experimental composer Emmanuel Mailly), dancers skitter around in darkness. Arms scoop, torsos swivel, and bodies spread swiftly across the space, while floorwork is molten, with sinewy back bridges and unfurling shoulder rolls.
Industrialization plays a role in the backdrop, too, when scenes of bumper-to-bumper traffic and rusted factories flash by. Viewers breathe a sigh of relief when the dancers eventually ground themselves back in nature, staring up at the projection of a towering old-growth tree.
There’s lots going on in What on EARTH under the climate-change umbrella, and at times it feels overwhelming. But the show is as good a reminder as any that environmental stewardship can take a person through the gamut of emotions, from optimism to anger and back again. What’s most important in this constant battle, as we’re oh-so-joyously reminded by the cheer squad in Weathering Rhythms, is that it’s imperative to keep caring. 
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