\n<\/p>\n
Nine naked people pose on a grassy lawn, like statues in a sculpture garden: standing, sitting, squatting, reclining in stillness. The light is warm, and bright but melancholy music plays. This is the scene that greets you as you enter \u201cAging Prelude<\/a>,\u201d a brief and delicately composed new work by the choreographic duo Chameckilerner (Rosane Chamecki and Andrea Lerner), which had its premiere at the Chocolate Factory Theater on Friday.<\/p>\n In the postures of the performers, who range in age from their 20s to their 70s, you might recognize works of art like Degas\u2019s \u201cSpanish Dancer\u201d (Jailyn Phillips-Wiley, an arm curved over her head, the other in front of her torso); or Rodin\u2019s \u201cThe Thinker\u201d (Ted Johnson, who sits hunched on a tree stump in the grass, chin on hand). The physical lexicon of \u201cAging Prelude\u201d comes from images of nudes in painting, sculpture and photography throughout history. The choreographers are explicit about their source material, displaying these images on a wall in the theater lobby.<\/p>\n While these artworks capture bodies at a single moment in time, often fetishizing or idealizing their subjects, \u201cAging Prelude\u201d is more interested in how time alters and marks a body, as well as the body\u2019s sense of itself. A meditation on change, this 45-minute work is also a fresh start of sorts. In 2007, after more than a decade of making highly physical and psychological dance works, Chemeckilerner, a Brazilian duo based in New York, presented what they framed as their last<\/a>. \u201cExit\u201d explored, in their words, \u201cthe concept of extinguishing themselves as an artistic entity\u201d: a \u201cfuneral rite\u201d for their career. \u201cAging Prelude\u201d is a quiet resurrection.<\/p>\n The performers remain still for a long while, as Paul Parreira\u2019s music, with its looping strums and reverberations, washes over the space. The audience sits on the cast\u2019s level, surrounding the grassy area (Taylor Friel\u2019s set design). Bria Bacon is the first to drop out of her opening pose, stride to another location and assume a new art-historical position. The music fades, leaving only a faint ticking that will eventually fade, too. Bobbi Salv\u00f6r Menuez, slouching and holding up a loose fist, speaks into the near-silence: \u201cI am holding a frog.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n