Cheating, Lying, Stealing

L to R foreground Yayoi Suzuki, Sita Mani, Aimee Phelan Deconinck, Amy Priya Santos. Background: Wanjiru Kamuyu, Caron Eule (partially obscured).Photographer: Julie Lemberger
L to R foreground Yayoi Suzuki, Sita Mani, Aimee Phelan Deconinck, Amy Priya Santos. Background: Wanjiru Kamuyu, Caron Eule (partially obscured). Photographer: Julie Lemberger

Composer David Lang wrote about his 1995 composition, “In Cheating, Lying, Stealing, although phrased in a comic way, I am trying to look at something dark. The piece is a series of unreliable, imperfect repetitions.” And yet studying Lang’s score reveals the precise logic used to construct a frame for these imperfections: the piece ends with a mirror image of the beginning, winding back into itself.

L to R Aimee Phelan Deconinck, Caron Eule, Wanjiru Kamuyu. Photographer: Julie Lemberger
L to R Aimee Phelan Deconinck, Caron Eule, Wanjiru Kamuyu. Photographer: Julie Lemberger

Propelled by Lang’s dark sonic landscape, six women communicate with vague gestures and suggest undefined emotional entanglements, alternately pulling away from and drawn back into a vortex of unrelenting unanimity.

Choreography: Janaki Patrik and the Dancers
Music: Cheating, Lying, Stealing, composed by David Lang
Dancers: Aimee Phelan Deconinck, Caron Eule, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Sita Mani, Amy Priya Santos, Yayoi Suzuki

L to R, Aimee Phelan Deconinck, Amy Priya Santos, Caron Eule, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Sita Mani, Yayoi Suzuki. Photographer: Julie Lemberger
L to R, Aimee Phelan Deconinck, Amy Priya Santos, Caron Eule, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Sita Mani, Yayoi Suzuki. Photographer: Julie Lemberger