The program handed out in York University’s Burton Auditorium last night didn’t exactly trade in understatement.

“Canadian Premiere” read the first line, “Toronto Exclusive” read the second.
Then, as if to cap these modest pronouncements, came the big news: “The most exciting dancer in New York, Douglas Dunn, in his current hit, Foot Rules.”  No wonder the program was published in purple!

What I’m suggesting is not so much that it peddled untruths, merely that it could not have been further from the spirit of the man it sought to celebrate.

Lean, blond, and turned out by Mimi Gross Grooms (love that name) in just slightly glamorized rehearsal togs, Douglas Dunn arrived at York looking like anything but a dance star.

A dancer he is, yes, and an extremely lithe, quick and supple one, slightly in the vein of the younger Merce Cunningham, in whose company he danced during the early ‘70s.  But a choreographer he is also, and an extremely exploratory rather than showbiz-oriented one, more concerned with finding things out about space and his body’s role in it than with performing tricks for applause.

Here before

Dunn has been in Toronto before.  He came alone about a season ago to the Art Gallery Of Ontario, with an extended solo rumination that held his audience fascinated. This time he brought Deborah Riley with him to share the ruminating, but the spirit of exploration remained.  The three acts of Foot Rules merely give a formal frame to what looks like an ongoing journey of discovery.

Watching Dunn, in other words, is not the same as watching someone perform steps.  He seems to be finding them as he goes along.  He will start to strut, bending forward, then back, stretching his arms, twisting his wrist.  Suddenly the direction changes, the sequence is repeated.  Then one of the movements will lead him into a different sequence and he’s off on another journey.
He has taken the journey before, of course.  For as improvisational as his movements often look, it would be too much of a coincidence for them to synchronize as perfectly as they do with Deborah Riley’s.

More remarkable

All of which makes the performance of both dancers the more remarkable as a feat of memory, for the steps constantly change.
They do not, in spite of this, produce a random effect.  Like Cunningham, Dunn is something of a classicist.  His movement explorations wind up achieving a sense of balance and symmetry.  There are Foot Rules.

What are the rules? Aha, that remains his secret.  In the New York Times recently, he was quoted as saying: “I don’t understand the audience wanting to know how a dance is made.  I don’t know how to build a building, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing buildings.”

Nor should it stop the rest of us from watching Dunn move.  A deadpan performer with a task-oriented rather than foot-oriented virtuosity, he moves with a lightness and sense of equilibrium that takes all the tension out of the experience of observing him.

Tension is something some dance viewers crave and some dancers thrive on.  To them, Douglas Dunn is probably a pretty cool customer, dancing to pretty cool music (a spare sound score by John Driscoll, Ebers and Mole).  Well, sweat isn’t everything.

Toronto Star                                                                                            October 11, 1979