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AUDIENCE REVIEW: LDC's Evidence of Damage

Company:
Lawton Dance Collective

Performance Date:
October 24, 2026

Freeform Review:

It's time to take the Lawton Dance Collective seriously. 

Evidence of Damage performed at Dixon Place on October 24, 2026, represents a clear evolution of the women-led company's use of artistic inspiration - here, Adrienne Rich's poem "Diving into the Wreck" and others - to examine themes of gender-based struggle communicated through contemporary dance. It's their most successful endeavor to date, revealing a remarkably mature economy of form and motion to express their ideas, while still allowing room for interpretation. 

Like Rich's poem, in the opening moments of the first part of the performance, artistic director Julia Lawton starts the dancers in broken, crawling dissonance. It's an uncomfortable and compelling sight, especially as some bodies are carried along seemingly unintentionally on the backs of others. But it's the choice of using dancer Abby Garcia to survey with an aching expression the creatures "crawling like insects" that gives the audience a narrative context: we are here to explore, to wonder, and to feel empathy for what has been endured, maybe even to lament what has pushed these women down into the depths.

In contemporary dance, however, there is a danger for "exploration" to lose coherence; but this is where LDC shows the most growth. Intentional design choices punctuate every section, from the use of a trio to orient us as we "circle silently / about the wreck" to the repeated hand motions that turn Rich's knife metaphor into something more destructive than defensive. Even when there is brief, joyful group synchronicity, we are not allowed to forget the opening strife; comfort and complacency simply aren't allowed here.

Transitions from collective to solo are carefully placed, guiding us to look more closely at the "half-destroyed instruments" amidst the wreck. Casey Leyden's short but stunning series of clockwise and counter-clockwise turns were an articulate variation on the dissonant theme. If Evidence of Damage as a whole is the wreck we are exploring, then all of the solos are the "haunters" adding rich nuance to what we witnessed in our dive.

And if that dive was meant to be underwater, standout Katie Jaffie was the very embodiment of fluid energy, with lines that extended to the extremities and beyond - the "mermaid whose dark hair / streams black..."

By the end of Evidence of Damage, we aren't completely sure how much of what we saw was an act of discovery or an act of recovery. The last few looks provided by Abby Garcia show that the ache has not gone away. And, that's where LDC displays its greatest maturity. Evidence of Damage beautifully conjures Rich's "thing itself and not the myth" because the act of exploring catastrophe is not a simple one: finding evidence of deliberate suppression may feel like a triumph, but the loss remains. Lawton Dance Collective captured that. This performance, as Rich would put it, is the treasure that prevailed.

Julia Lawton is a young visionary, and she and her incredibly talented collaborators have shown resilience and commitment to their art, craft, and staging expertise. Dance world, it's time to pay attention.

Author:
J. Fiore