In May, Whim W’him presented new works by artistic director Olivier Wevers and PNB’s Andrew Bartee, the Seattle premiere of L’Effleure by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and a showing of Wevers’ Fragments, originally created for Spectrum Dance.

Bartee’s flair for choreography is easily seen in his This is Real. Set in a recording studio, the dance features frenzied movement, then snakelike phrases, then resolution among the three dancers: Mia Monteabaro, Tory Peil, and Sergey Kheylik. Likewise, Wever’s award-winning Fragments was a huge success – melodrama, parody, social critique, energetic, rhythmic (with the same highs and lows of the background arias themselves). It’s funny, it’s demanding — Lara Seefeldt and Jesse Sani  were striking.

Choreographer-dancer Bartee performed a luscious solo, Lopez Ochoa’s, L’Effleuré. Just standing in da Vinci’s anatomical pose, hands bloodied with red roses, was as powerful as his compact dancing – head bowed, body erect.

However, it’s in Wevers’ premiere of I Don’t Remember A Spark, that the dancers show their skill and credibility as an ensemble. Dancing to voice-overs on the choreographic process provided by Wevers himself, the group almost breathes the movement. Says Wevers: Choreography is a “discipline, a point of view, a language” and  “you want to embrace what [the dancers’] limitations are” to spark something in both creator and those dancing. Clear and smooth and articulate –the dancers bear witness to Wever’s prose – “creating is like breathing, it just happens.”