Time In

Time In

Westlake High School Theatre, June 27

Get the car in the shop by 8, make the computer team meeting at 9, coffee with Dave at 11, dentist at 3, softball game at 5:30, surprise party for Sarah at 7, animal rescue benefit at 8 – on it goes, day after day, our schedules overflowing with work-related meetings, competing appointments, family obligations, and the odd social occasion with friends, all to be juggled with the responsibilities of job and home. There's always so much to do, and how are we to cram it all into a day with only 24 hours, a week with just seven days? Faced with the terror of a crowded Day Runner, who hasn't felt like an upended June bug, flailing and helpless?

Lisa Fehrman has, and the recent performance by her company, Stillpoint Dance – making a welcome return after a four-year absence – began with dancer Angie Johnson on her back, arms and legs waving slowly in the air as composer/keyboardist Laura Scarborough spoke in a husky whisper of the paralysis brought on by jam-packed to-do lists. From there, the dancers moved through a series of repeated movements: dropping to the floor, extending their legs, rising and stretching an arm upward, making a hoop with both arms, turning in a circle, and so on. The movements themselves were not without individual beauty of meaning – as with so many of the activities in our lives – but they've developed into a kind of routine, the moves we go through on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, the things we have to do.

But Fehrman wasn't content just to bemoan our hectic, harried lifestyle one more time. She also offered possibilities for coping with, even improving, this overwhelming state of affairs. Taking inspiration from sports – note the show title: Time In – Fehrman and crew explored ways that teamwork, discipline, and even sideline encouragement could provide relief to our stressful existence. The piece "Intersections" featured a chain of duets, the dancers moving from partner to partner in a succession of lifts, carries, and rolls – flipping over one's back, leaping into another's arms, literally providing support for one another.

The playfulness that has animated previous Stillpoint programs was evident here as well, in an interlude with Amanda Jones and Melissa Mendoza in matching referee shirts getting in sync with each other on the hand motions they use to signal infractions on the court. And the company offered an especially amusing take on cheerleaders, portraying them as stone-faced Bob Fosse vamps in black lingerie, thrusting legs and arms at provocative angles, languidly sashaying from seductive pose to seductive pose – the on-target staging was the work of Valdo Perales – as Scarborough sang a throaty cheer of appreciation for each of us in "this game of life." What the dancers may have occasionally lacked in precision evoking trademark Fosse moves, they made up for with attitude, their deadpan expressions wryly channeling the seen-it-all ennui of the master choreographer.

In the end, Fehrman brought us back to where she started: All the dancers were left on their backs, arms and legs waving slowly in the air, victims of the hustle and bustle. After the wit and positive nature of so much of the program, it seemed a curious regression, but perhaps it was just a concession to reality, the tightly packed schedules that the dancers and all of us watching them would be wrestling with again once the final bows were taken. But weighing the pleasures of this hour as I left – the dancers, the engaging ways they connected as they moved, the humor, the lovely Chopin-esque interlude by Scarborough on grand piano, the martial drum solo pounded out by power percussionist George Mack – I found myself checking this performance off my own to-do list with a satisfied smile.