‘Colony’: Two dancers work in sync to see who will ‘screw up first’

Melissa Krodman and Kelly Bond are hard to tell apart.
Credit: Nathan Jurgenson

Anyone who’s ever shared a piano bench has hammered out a duo rendition of “Heart and Soul,” that old lesson-book standard. Choreographers Melissa Krodman and Kelly Bond played their version at a friend’s house a few years ago, but found themselves inspired to do more than move on to “Chopsticks.”
“Over the course of playing the song over and over again,” Krodman recalls, “we were having so much fun experiencing that moment where we were asking, ‘Which one of us is going to screw up first?’ We felt that sense of excitement and tension, anticipating the critical moment when something would change.”
Inspired by that feeling, the pair entered the studio for a lengthy creative process that resulted in “Colony,” a 50-minute dance duet that plays with that sense of escalating tension. The piece, which had its Philly premiere at last year’s Fringe Festival, takes place around and among the audience, which Krodman says, “can be jarring, but fun, to experience.” She adds, “People have really strong, visceral reactions.”

Krodman and Bond come from slightly different backgrounds — Krodman comes out of movement and musical theater, Bond studied contemporary dance in Europe — resulting in small but significant differences when they perform simultaneously. “Both of us are really interested in what emerges from our bodies when we place them at the center of an exploration,” Krodman says. “There’s a discrepancy in the way that our bodies work and perform when we move in synchronicity that becomes very interesting to watch.”

If you go

‘Colony’
March 2 and 3
The Fidget Space
1714 N. Mascher St.
$10-$20,
www.thefidget.org