Press
"A Cross-species Movement Dialogue Between Agency and Vulnerability ….“Whose lives count as lives?” From the time we enter the room, the audience is prompted to examine the concept of worthiness – a charged subject, especially considering the contemporary cultural and political climates we navigate, where one’s autonomy and privilege can be determined by gender, race, class, religion and other facets of identity that are prioritize based on hierarchies of power."
"...It was “Supper” that prompted thoughts of borders. The piece is about emigration and requires audience members to pass through a convincingly nervous-making simulation of border control.... Inside are long folding tables, which soon become the site of a Last Supper, arranged like Leonardo da Vinci’s, the kind of farewell dinner that precedes leaving one’s homeland. The tables are key. On four legs or tilted, they serve as platforms for the dancers, who scramble up their sides or run along their edges. The tables represent walls, as at borders, and the dancers slip through the gaps between them, gaps that sometimes slam shut.."
"...to these stories in a harrowing, captivating dance theater piece. Filled with symbolism and metaphor, it forcefully conveys the emotional power of the psychological and physical perils that can plague an immigrant's passage. It's a journey that, is worth taking once at Crane Arts, repeating - and restaging - again."...
"...In her most recent dance theater work, Supper, People on the Move, Argentine American choreographer Silvana Cardell showcases how dance can confront social issues viscerally, triggering responses that tap something as deep as migration is to our very existence. ...Together, the physical, unrelenting encounter between dancers and audience, effects an empathy and a recognition that statistics reporting, and images so rarely achieve... .... the room—like the stories—could be anywhere lengthening their journeys, the room recedes behind powerful imagery...."
"...Supper, generates undeniable empathy for immigrants, refugees, exiles, and those navigating beyond the borders of their homelands. It is not tethered to a single narrative but evokes the overall struggles inseparable from many immigrant experiences. The result is a work that is at once specific and universal without ever being reductive..."
...."Supper, People on the Move was a well thought out and efficaciously executed choreographic project. Cardell offered an authentic gift that was both intense and honest. She delivered a splendid work that called for us to carefully examine the paths people take to conquer new horizons. A true masterpiece, Supper was spearheaded by a bold choreographer. "
”...Excerpts explores the potential of visual art as source material for choreography in works created between 2004-2012, however the real showcase is Cardell’s artistry. From two-dimensional images, she builds worlds that move before us, thanks, in no small part, to a cast of formidable dancers who surrender entirely to her vision. Like words that jump from the page, the movement leaps from the performers’ bodies into ours, and we cannot help but be changed in the process."
‘Double Vision’ by Silvana Cardell was dynamic from the start with Bethany Formica in a floor length, black flamenco gown, her breasts bound in surgical gauze seems like she is being pulled from behind. The music has dialogue of a patient being instructed on what to expect from surgery. A Bach guitar starts to play with the sound of medical equipment. A form appears out of her dress and it is Maria Urrutia and the two cleave in various lift patterns and poses against red lighting. Urrutia seemed to represent a protective specter. Cardell’s movement is sensually dramatic and evocative to the theme. Her inherent message being of the dignity of the body, even as it is ravaged. This intriguing work was all too brief.
”...dancers blocked and challenged, held and climbed over one another, as artist Jennifer Baker drew life-size impressions of them on six large easels. It was fascinating... Baker captured the choreography better than any words...”
“The evening started with the audience sitting in an intimate space with the arrival of trays of votive candles and even a birthday cake to the opening of Flicker, a solo performed by Bethany Formica with choreography from co-creators Silvana Cardell and Bethany Formica. As laughter filled the hall and the celebration of a birthday ensues, we are drawn in to the dichotomy of the celebration juxtaposed with an internal struggle. The votives are strewn across the floor as Bethany brilliantly dances between them. As she pauses and even balances just above the candles, one can feel the heat upon the skin and even perhaps the burn. The candles flicker and as the only light source, cast shadows, beautifully accenting the flawless movements executed by Bethany as she fully embodies her character as no one else can. With each passing between celebration and anguish, a series of candles are snuffed out. At times, Bethany is literally throwing herself at walls in an endless frenzy. From a sudden stillness, her body begins to writhers, at first playful, sexy and even taunting, then consumed with that emotional pain that transforms through her every limb. Finally, with a burst of light from flash paper touched to a candle that wafts to the floor, the audience is left in the still of darkness.”
“Bethany Formica and Silvana Cardell brought us Flicker, which has previously seen the light through Philly PARD’s Mixed Grille series as well as Aquarius Era in Bulgaria. Formica extinguishes many flames, the sole source of light in her solo work, as a marker of time—a passing of years. Starting with a four-inch square piece of cake (laden with more candles than likely safe for fire code), she leaves her birthday table to sit and flip amongst the candles strewn about the floor. Formica is, as always, most at home while upside down. Next the wall buffets her back and forth to the now-waxy marley--a nervous side-effect of Formica’s normal razor-sharp precision.We are close to her, can smell the wicks burning, can see the sinew of her bandaged foot as it narrowly skirts the flame. We are able to see less and less of Formica until, in a flash, she is gone. It reminds me that dance is dangerous, that this field is intrinsically tied to aging, and that Formica continues to defy both of these culprits that can fell a career that relies on the body.”
"During Vertex, an intriguing solo choreographed and performed by Cardell, an overhead camera projected her image on a screen at the rear of the stage as she danced between the side stage wall and a black cloth filled with objects - money, a toy house, picture frames. The audience looked down on her projected image as she seemed to move along a precipice, about to fall into a pool of what could have been memories, wishes or nightmares."
"Maquinas Simples," successfully attaining a mood and emotion through the use of a few props used to further express the ideas translated through motion… reenacts the terror in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," as a giant silver wrecking ball swings through the dancers' space... keeping the audience in aching suspense.
”...Surreal doesn't begin to describe it... Between the Pages envelops audience members in another world... The multimedia experience is spectacular.”