Margaret Wiss — ...to be continued
Reviewed by Lauren Levato Coyne

Choreographer Margaret Wiss trimmed her hourlong film …to be continued down to several captivating minutes for her Waveforms presentation. Even as a lover of fields and prairies, I am inclined to think watching an hour of someone falling in the tall grass and branches might drive me to irritation. But the several minutes that were projected (many times larger than life) on the giant IMAX screen left me elated and with a desire to run through the nearest wheat field. The crisp sounds, the resistance against the body, the shifting colors and textures all through the seasons are on full display; prairie-rich landscapes are very exciting places indeed. Here is where I reveal my love of and attention to the biological world. No matter how beautiful the render, a digital avatar of nature can never compare to the real bodily experience of falling, repeatedly, in a field. Admittedly, I’ve never fallen like Wiss falls, with her dancer’s grace and lilting physicality. We know the sharp spikes of dried flora are punching back against her body but still she continues: rise-twirl-fall-rise-spin-fall-rise-twirl-lean-spin-fall-rise. The metaphor about failure and resilience is clear but there’s something more important in her action, and in our viewing — an invitation to play and in it reveal our shared vulnerability. Programmatically, this bit of corporeality inserted between acres of digitized speculations was a welcome break.