Artifact makes dance of words in 'Monologue of a Muted Man'

Words are Patrick Baliani’s life.

Now the playwright and University of Arizona English professor is marrying them to dance.

Baliani’s script, “Monologue of a Muted Man,” is next up or Artifact Dance Project.

“Monologue” takes us to Venice. A man grappling with the gradual loss of his hearing visits the city, sees a woman on a waterbus using sign language, and becomes instantly smitten.

Baliani’s words seem to be made for dance:

“She is more expressive, more elegant, more varied in her movements — the way her hands refract the Canal, the contours of the palazzi reflected in her gestures. Arches upon arches — raked, skewed, rampant, and stuttered — rendered in the way she is shaping — caressing — space.”

Watching a recent rehearsal, it’s easy to see it was destiny that brought Baliani and Artifact together.

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Two dancers — the company’s founders, Ashley Bowman and Claire Hancock — float across the dance floor, interpreting the characters and the words read by actor Robert Anthony Peters. Hancock and Bowman sometimes do an almost literal translation, sometimes a more abstract one. The dance interpretation makes Baliani’s story even more vivid, and his musical language matches the fluidity of the dance.

Punctuating it is original piano music by Russell Ronnebaum, who has captured the passion of the story and the glory of Venice.

That’s not how Baliani saw this when he wrote the monologue about a decade ago. But after seeing Artifact’s 2016 performance of “Animal Farm,” a light bulb went off.

“It was pure monologue,” he says of the play. “I was looking for a way to radicalize it.”

This has been a deeply collaborative project, he says.

“It’s been a five-way street,” he says, underscoring that everyone has been involved in shaping it. “The five of us are kind of directing each other. It’s very exciting.”