Review: Dancers in ‘Plantulary’ make a plea to understand plants and a pledge to love them

Usually Red Eye Theater’s four large north-facing windows are covered with curtains. Last weekend, the curtain-free windows revealed a view of the skyline of downtown Minneapolis for two late afternoon performances of “Plantulary,” a new collaborative piece by Aniccha Arts led by Pramila Vasudevan.

The light streaming in is a significant facet of Valerie Oliveiro’s lighting design, also featuring dramatic side illumination and pockets of warm color around the stage. Bringing natural light into the indoor theater space aligns with the spirit of the piece, framed around the notion of what plants have to teach us.

Plants of various kinds make up the physical world of this piece. They are lined along the edges of the stage in planters and hang from the ceiling in small sculptural forms.

“Plantulary” functions as a love letter to plants, and also a lexicon of their secrets, translated into movement and language. Dance companies don’t typically publish their dance scores along with their program notes, but Aniccha Arts does just that. The words and their embodied, abstract definitions are listed on a two-sided piece of paper handed out to audience members as they enter the space. The text design is by playwright and performance maker Rachel Jendrzejewski. Dancers speak, and sometimes sing the words and perform them with an original movement vocabulary.

“Plansistence” and “plantyielding” are two examples of these made-up words, spoken by Jeffrey Wells and Lela Pierce. The dancers repeat these two words — one that reflects on plants’ determination and the other on plants’ suppleness. The dancers circle one another, moving progressively across the stage testing out the tension between the differing meanings.

For as long as humans have had language, we’ve named things and classified them. This process of codification has helped us understand the world we live in. There’s a curiosity that runs through this work, which essentially searches for ways to describe what plants do. The dancers endeavor to try out their observations in their bodies and with their voices.

Vocalist and musician Mankwe Ndosi has created songs and sound design for the piece, sung by the performers and also heard in stereo. Ndosi also plays the didgeridoo and wears ankle bells, and the footwork of the performers additionally adds to the percussive sound.

The music helps shape “Plantulary” with an arc, one that grows with increasing frenzy as the piece progresses. Stomping increases, the movement grows in velocity and a cabbage gets devoured and destroyed. With wild and riveting ritual, the work breaks down the barriers between humans and growing things, and gets us to think about them more deeply.

When: 4 p.m. Fri.-Sun.

Where: Red Eye Theater, 2213 Snelling Av. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $5-$100, redeyetheater.org