Bob Eisen ON GO ING
The first image of 77-year-old Bob Eisen is striking, and not the way one would expect a dance concert to begin: with a tall, lean, white haired man, looking every bit his age in a red and blue sweat suit and sneakers, standing at the center of Links Hall stage. But in the opening dance of five on the program, An Ongoing Solo , Eisen begins to move slowly articulating his spine, and any notion of ageism that was creeping in fades away immediately. In fact, he seems to reverse the aging process and grow more youthful as the dance progresses. Pacing the room, nodding, swinging his arms in impossible directions, one moment summersaulting backwards on the floor, the next standing doubled over and fidgety, wringing his hands like a child needing to use the restroom. The piece is detailed and frenetic with enough repetition to bring understanding to Eisen's strange movement language. If we didn't know him before, we know him very well by the end of the piece. Eisen moves with surpri...