Lately, I’ve been watching LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) on Hulu and have to say that I’m pretty impressed. I’ve always been somewhat suspect when it comes to modern and interpretative dance, as often the answer to the question “Is this anything?” is “No” when it comes to that kind of dance. LXD very clearly doesn’t have that problem. It’s something alright, and it’s something wonderful.
The first thing I noticed is the variable length of each episode of LXD. Hulu, and the creators of the series, have taken advantage of the web medium to allow each episode to be however long or short it needs to be, rather than be confined to a prescribed time block. This is used to great effect as episodes that are 12 minutes long often contain performances as strong as episodes that are only a little over 3 minutes long. Each episode says what it needs to say, and then gets out of the way.
Which gets to what makes the series so incredible, albeit perhaps incredible to only a niche lover like myself, everything in this series is told through dance. Other than the introduction by the wise old storyteller at the beginning of each episode, there are barely any word said in any episode. It’s something that’s hard to describe, but the dance moves and action tell a compelling story in each episode. The main story arch that links all the episodes together seems kind of irrelevant, but it is useful in order to link each story stylistically. Each dance tells something unique to the episode it’s contained in, and does through though appropriate choice of dance style, costume, and setting. Episode 6, The Duet, tells the story of two lovers torn apart. Each one does an independent choreography, but the episode is made of over lapping camera frames and splits, so that even though the two are dancing in two separate places the individual dances become a well orchestrated duet. Really, each episode could lend itself to independent analysis. Other than The Duet, I found Episode 3, Robot Lovestory, to be very compelling as it tells the story of three characters, with amazing group choreography for each character.
I definitely recommend checking it out, especially if you like skilled dance. There are some episodes that are less “meaningful” and just have some bad ass dancing in them. The break dancing and Wushu moves demonstrate an unquestionable level of skill. Since each episode is only about 10 minutes long, you can enjoy a rich experience without having to commit gigantic swaths of time.
