Ex-Romance

Directed by Charles Atlas

Atlas' fascination with "narrative, psychology, dance, and flights of fantasy," is manifested in this dynamic videodance musical. Here the postmodern choreography of Karole Armitage is performed by Armitage, Michael Clark and others to American pop and Latin music. Framed and interrupted by the ironic observations of two parodic "public television" commentators, the dancers play fictionalized versions of themselves in a wry tale of contemporary romance, in which the dance literally and metaphorically advances the narrative. Atlas deftly stages elaborate dance sequences in unlikely settings — an airport lounge, a gas station, a baggage conveyor belt — that are presented alternately as fact and fantasy. Atlas manipulates the representation of truth and artifice, reality and fiction in this meta-narrative.