“We’re playing oldies,” a recording at the beginning of Beau Regard announces. And that’s all I’ll give away. You must come out to see this dance for yourself!

We’re now entering week two, the retrospective part of our Platform, Susan Rethorst: Retro(intro)spective, and you have the opportunity to see a rare mythical beast—a simple, humble, modest, exquisitely composed, beautifully danced work from 1989. After watching last night’s dream rehearsal…oops…dress rehearsal, I went home directly to consult my book on Jung to better understand how this dance was working me over…I mean, working on me. It’s a dance of signs and symbols which the dancers perform with a classical solemnity, no, the unsettling solemnity of a trickster. Its formality askew, the work barely hides the fact that something is off.

Okay, I’ll give you one, two more details. Because you should not miss the weirdly romantic spoon duet danced by Vicky Shick and Rebecca Brooks. There’s a lot of sweetness here. At the end Jiminy Cricket sings “When you wish upon a Star,” but I’m not convinced. I’m not sure that in Rethorst’s world Jiminy’s kind of dreams do come true. -Melinda Ring, June 1, 2011