Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan presents an array of programs including DraftWork, showing dances that are in the process of being created. The first piece, Invisible Landscape, during a March 2014 session, was choreographed and performed by Aretha Aoki.

Aoki, wearing a grey t-shirt and silver athletic shorts, walks into the space. Silence. She stands in the corner, back to the audience, her knees slightly bent, her shoulders curving in, and her head down. Silence. After the lights rise, she remains in this position for what feels like minutes, each moment ever so slightly folding farther and farther down. Still in silence, she moves, stiffly for a moment, then stops in a pose, suddenly still. She curves her body, bends her arms, leaning, hunching, dropping. She moves softly around the space, her feet barely making a noise on the ground, and then stops. She moves and pauses, moves and pauses. Suddenly she changes; her feet land hard on the ground. She runs, not fast, but large, putting her entire body into each step. Loud purposeful stomping is the only sound that fills the room. And again, she stops. This time breathing loudly, letting her whole body follow the breath. She begins moving again, lightly as before, jumping softly, turning slowly, until the room is again filled with the loud stomps of her running. And again, she stops. When she starts, each movement contradicts the last, soft and hard, fast and slow, small and large. She continues contrasting each phrase with the one before it, moving throughout the space, pausing before continuing on. She pauses, standing near the center of the space, facing off to the side, making slow circles with her arms.

Now for the first time, music comes on. The movement is hard and fast, more than before, as if listening to the music, but not following it. She moves angularly, leading herself with an arm or a leg, her hands on her head, her limbs flying around her. And stop. She keeps with this style for the remainder of the dance. She ends standing close to the audience, not facing them, but not facing away either. She is reaching, but it is a light reach, almost without purpose.

Aoki created a simple yet varied dance. It flowed: didn’t leave your mind trying to pick apart the movements from one another. Rather, the contrast was enjoyable. She used repetition, the stops and the starts, but the contrasting movement was interesting to watch and kept the viewer invested. The title, Invisible Landscape, resonates with the piece. The way Aoki moves, it looks like she is trying to navigate a terrain that cannot be seen, while at the same time, it looks as though she is creating her own terrain as she goes. One dancer. A simple costume. No set pieces or props and no storyline, keeps the emphasis on the movement. Invisible Landscape was an evocative, elegant dance that was beautiful to watch.