Larson performs a duet with the dancer Nayaa Opong in which they take over the width of the stage, mirroring each other — crouching and balancing as their sweeping arms and legs delineate precise shifts of weight. They rarely touch. When Jada Jenai sings Nina Simone’s “The Human Touch,” softly descending to the floor as she belts out the last note, the memory of that duet, with its icy precision, comes back to the surface.
The notion of touch — or lack of it — is present also when Danielle Marshall moves within a small square on the stage as we hear the story of Joice Heth, a Black woman who was put on display in 1835 by P.T. Barnum, who claimed she was 161 years old. Instead of a human touch, the words are inhuman; the sight of Marshall, rolling on her back and freezing her limbs in the air, makes the tale, alongside Barnum’s description of her, all the more horrifying.
Again, the theatrical elements — especially the text — come together as pieces that sit side by side to become a greater whole that is less nameable than felt. We hear shouts and sirens from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol; “Dixie” is played, sped up. It fades into “Beulah Land” by Bessie Jones and Georgia Sea Island Singers.
“Yesterday’s monsters are today’s subjects,” Larson says. “Today’s machines are tomorrow’s human beings.”
As “Curriculum II” continues, it seems to be pondering an essential idea: What is it to be human? It’s dark, but there is also an underlying sense of hope, especially as Larson says — and then repeats: “The other must be understood as that which is to come.”
When, in the end, Paspe reprises singing “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” the dancers gather around her in a circle, before turning to face us, just as they began. But now, it feels like everyone has gone to the moon. And, in the words of Bowie, we are floating in the most peculiar way.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company
Through Friday; newyorklivearts.org
