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Aw, it was sweet! And interesting – was just as much about the music – sung live onstage- as the dance if not more. Amos machanic is so good, breaks my heart. Think i saw will from so u think u can dance talking to choreographer hope boykin.
There’s a good article by Joan Acocella in this week’s New Yorker reviewing a couple of recent dances at Brooklyn Academy of Music. In it, she talks about American choreographers and their uneasiness with ballet, their distrust of the dance form as inherently European (and snobbish). Hence, their need constantly to compare and contrast it with other forms of dance, even to deconstruct it.
Funny, but when I saw Tharp’s Brief Fling recently during American Ballet’s Theater’s City Center season, as much as I liked the fun of it (especially since my favorites Marcelo Gomes and Craig Salstein danced in my program — both of whom really up the drama and humor as far as they can possibly go), I couldn’t help but get annoyed thinking, why do so many choreographers either contrast ballet with other dance forms (with modern, with American social, with aerobics, with tango — in Brief Fling, it was with traditional Celtic or Scottish dance) or try to take it apart and show its underpinnings, to critique it — like early William Forsythe, like Jorma Elo, like even the new piece ABT commissioned by Lauri Stallings? So, I was thankful for Acocella’s little historical discussion of American choreography and ballet. Go here for the article.
She also reviews, Urban Bush Women and Compagnie Jant-Bi and falls for African dance! Yes, Joan 😀
Busy busy weekend for me.
Today is Dance Times Square’s student in-house competition which I’m not participating in but am covering for Explore Dance.
Ditto for tonight’s Starry Night Winter Showcase, part of Columbia University’s Big Apple DanceSport Challenge, where Slavik Kryklyvyy and Hanna Karttunen will perform! Slavik is my favorite Latin dancer and I haven’t seen him dance in a while now, so am very excited. I’ve never seen Hanna dance Latin before but have seen her amazing exhibitions at Blackpool. So, yes, very excited, to say the least. Also, Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova (America’s top ballroom couple) are dancing Standard.
And, this weekend is the Independent / Small Press Book Fair in midtown, which I hope to slip in and out of today while at Dance Times Square down the street, and attend most of tomorrow.
Also, last night I saw Jose Limon Dance Company‘s Program B, which is their classic Limon program (The Moor’s Pavane (probably his most famous work), The Traitor (excellent excellent), and Suite From a Choreographic Offering (beautifully rich spiritual dance set to gorgeous Bach music). Don’t have time to write about it now, but I highly recommend Program B, showing through December 7th. Here is Philip’s review.
I went to the opening night of Misnomer Dance Theater’s Being Together at the Joyce SoHo last night. I almost don’t want to write anything yet since they’ll be broadcasting live their December 14th performance. I know, how coolly innovative, right! So, I encourage everyone to watch that. It’s going to be here, on their website. Don’t worry; I’ll remind you again closer to the date 🙂
The work is divided into three sections: “Too Late Tulip”; “Rock.Paper.Flock”; and “Zipper”. All deal with different ways human beings have of connecting to each other. The second and third also deal with (a related issue, I suppose, of) how meaning is made in dance — is it due more to the choreographer or the dancers? — which to me, as someone who’s never danced anything but ballroom, is something I’ve always wondered about. I mean, with all other kinds of artists — writers, painters, composers — the work is due entirely to the person at the helm. Sure, actors (in the case of a play) and musicians over time add their own interpretations, but it’s ultimately the writer or composer’s words or notes. I’ve never understood choreographers who say they couldn’t have possibly made their dance on anyone else. That seems to contribute to the ephemeral nature of dance. And that ephemeral quality would seem to negate that a dance, like the other arts, can have a history, and a future. And yet great dances, thankfully, do survive the dancers on whom they were made.
Anyway, choreographer Christopher Elam says his dances are completely open to interpretation, but my interpretation of the first, “Too Late Tulip” was that it’s the story of a woman who has trouble connecting to others. She enjoys swaying to the music on her own, but when others try to join her, to connect with her in various shapes, she kicks out at them, pushes them away. Soon, she is taken with a male dancer, who has a female partner already. The effect is at times chaotic, at times sweet.
The second part I really can’t write about because so much of it was improvised, albeit “directed” on the spot by the choreographer, by Elam. His commands to the dancers are at times hilarious in their generality or seeming contradictions: “Coco, I want you to do what I am thinking” (she playfully shoved another dancer); “Dorian, take center stage with intention and an air of mystery stage and then act like a bowling trophy”; “Luke, focus intensely on something beyond our comprehension” (this was actually rather mesmerizing); “Coco, transform yourself into a magical being and engage in a battle and negotiation with Luke”; etc. It was hilarious watching the dancers take on these commands and this section will be the most interesting to watch repeated on December 14th.
The third part, “Zipper,” seemed to be an extension of the themes of the first two. A dancer (Coco Karol, pictured above with Elam) moved her arms about as if conducting an orchestra. Two dancers would at points move along with her gestures, like they were her instruments, and she’d smile; at other times they’d do their own thing and her face would express surprise or concern. Was she in control or were they? Later, Elam dances, conveying (to me) a loner trying desperately to connect, at times with Karol, at times with the other male dancer in the troupe, Luke Gutgsell.
One thing about Elam — his movement language is so original, something I can’t say of many other choreographers. I’m sure this is the effect of having lived and studied abroad, working in a variety of non-Western cultures. The movement is somehow still evocative of the familiar though, and emotionally moving — the creatures he creates can be funny, sad, pathetic, cute, always endearing. (If you watched So You Think You Can Dance, think Mark Kanemura). In “Zipper”, he moves at times like a gorilla, at times like a crab. To me, this speaks to the interconnectedness of life forms, of how humans can be animalistic and non-human animals human-like. It’s worth going to see his work just to see such unique movement and partnering.
So watch on December 14th! And hopefully, they’ll put a permanent video on the website for watchers who aren’t before a computer at that time…
is now on Sling.
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At judson church. Yulia zagoruychenko is here. Fun!
Update: Wow. Shen Wei is usually either hit or miss with me, and tonight was definitely a big hit. It was kind of an antidote to the Sokolow I saw last night, at least at the beginning, in that the dancers had no problem at all with connection. They started out dancing mostly in pairs or groups, limbs entwined, in various embracing poses. Then, a dancer wearing a mitt soaked in black paint took the floor — which was a canvass in the middle of the church, and rolled around, spreading paint everywhere. Soon, other dancers followed her, making a quite interesting overall design. But at this point the music (played by three violinists, a cellist and a pianist, one stationed at each corner of the floor) changed, grew more threatening, and the dancers began dancing alone, their bodies awkward and contorted. A female dancer came out naked but drenched in black ink, including her face, and crawled, rolled, flailed about, on the floor. Not to be too literal, but it kind of reminded me of a giant oil spill and the calamity that such a thing wreaks on all of life. Later, dancers began spreading the black ink with their socked feet, and she (that woman covered in paint), followed by all the dancers, began jumping and running about chaotically. And, in the end, dancers spread various-colored ink around the floor, resulting in a kind of Pollock-esque floor painting.
The piece was called Connect Transfer II and is showing at the Judson Church through December 7th.
Big thank you to Philip (whose review is here) for inviting me!
By the way, the Empire State Building is indeed gold!
Last night was the opening night of Jose Limon Dance Company‘s one-week season at the Joyce. Program A consisted of two dances: Into My Heart’s House by Limon protegee Clay Taliaferro, created this year, and a revival of Anna Sokolow’s 1955 masterpiece, Rooms.
Heart’s House was a lovely lyrical dance in the style of Limon, very spiritual, and set mainly to Bach music, beloved by Limon.
But it was the second piece, Sokolow’s Rooms, that really blew me away. Unfortunately I can’t find a YouTube clip of it to show as an example, but basically, the piece evokes the solitariness, the loneliness of the human condition and it does so brilliantly and hauntingly. A set of chairs are brought out onto the stage, each one representing one room containing an individual. At times several dancers take the stage at once, one to a chair (but each alone on that chair), at times only one, two or three will dance. In one section, “Panic,” a man has a frightening nightmare from which he tries desperately to escape, eventually leading to a kind of paranoia that alienates everyone around him; in “Daydream” three women seem to look off into the distance, sharing a similar vision, but each reacting differently; in one section — my favorite — “Escape” a woman (the excellent Roxanne D’Orleans Juste) seems to be remembering a loved one who has passed, feeling him caress her, only to realize he is gone, she is alone with only herself as comfort (and everyone who has lost anyone can relate to her movements, her range of emotions); in another section “Going” a man seems to run and run in slow motion, but it is more like sleepwalking as he never seems to get anywhere; and in the two sections that open and close the dance, both named “Alone,” all dancers take the stage, dancing together on their chairs, yet not connecting with each other, each alone. At one point they all lie on the floor, their legs wrapping around each others’, weaving in and out, making a kind of tangled web of would-be communication, never touching.
Honestly, one of the best dances I’ve ever seen. Makes me hungry to see more Sokolow.
I also can’t wait to see Program B later this week, which will be Limon’s classics including The Traitor and The Moor’s Pavanne about which I’ve heard so much.
Limon (who was born in Mexico and moved to Los Angeles when he was still a child), along with Doris Humphrey, his teacher and a master of American modern dance, founded the company 62 years ago, making it the longest continuously operating repertory company in the US. I feel like seeing his dances (and Sokolow’s masterpiece) is like a history lesson. They’ll be at the Joyce (Chelsea) through December 7th. Go here for info (and to see a little video clip).
If you see the Empire State Building lit in gold tonight and wonder why, it’s in celebration of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater‘s opening night gala this evening at City Center. It’s the company’s 50th anniversary. Also, video clips will be shown at Times Square.
Wish I could be there. Instead I’ll be at Shen Wei with Philip. Will definitely be seeing Alvin Ailey (hopefully multiple times) next week though!
Wentworth & leggett rare bookshop
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Favorite bookstore in Durham. They have the best collection of dance books I’ve seen anywhere. Three shelves.
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Listening to alvin ailey’s revelations & starting to get v excited about season – begins rt after holiday!
Last night, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet invited bloggers for a little sneak preview of their Winter season. I absolutely loved the new piece by Dutch choreographer Didy Veldman. I don’t want to say too much about it because the season’s still over a month away and who knows what they might change between now and then, but I haven’t seen a new modern ballet in a while that I felt was so promising!
But really, the photos don’t do the dance justice. See rehearsal footage here.
Seriously psyched now for the upcoming season!
Sorry, am very behind again on my review posts — so busy with all manner of stuff to get done before Thanksgiving! Anyway, both of these two programs — Complexions Contemporary Ballet at the Joyce’s Chelsea theater, and Andonis Foniadakis’s new version of “Rite of Spring” at its SoHo location — were both danced brilliantly — big huge kudos to all of the dancers, but especially to Ioanna Toumpakari (below, in photo I swiped from Oberon’s Grove), who did what appeared to be an extremely emotionally intense and physically vigorous 40-minute solo in “Rite.”
I didn’t feel as strongly about the choreography of either though.
Complexions (I saw program A; there is also a program B) included five pieces, my favorite of which by far was “I Will Not Be Broken,” choreographed by Dwight Rhoden and having its world premiere this season. This ballet is on both programs, by the way. It began with S. Epatha Merkerson (an actor on Law & Order) first speaking the words of a poem, then breaking out into song — a set of slavery spirituals. Desmond Richardson — who is amazing beyond belief — sat on a bench at the front of the stage, body contorted, hunched over, then arms moving quickly, waving something off, brushing off shackles — binds not only physical but mental — then fanning himself with quick flicks of the wrists, like cooling himself down from being taken by the spirit. He’d lift his feet flexed-footed, as if tense, very alive, a body occupied by another force — then kick out violently, fall to the ground, jump up into an amazing flexed-footed split, come up for air. More jumps, then he’d sit on the bench again, cover his eyes, cradle himself.
While he rested, another couple — a man and woman sitting on another bench — danced a duet. But I just found myself unable to wait for Richardson to catch his breath, start up again. I’m not even sure what each specific movement meant or was intended to evoke, but overall I got the sense of a man being lifted out of himself, out of his pain, to freedom, letting the spirit free him — which is of course what slavery spirituals were all about. He brought the words Merkerson spoke and sang vividly and compellingly to life, to say the least.
The rest of the program was so-so choreographically, though danced very well. “Ave Maria” was performed by a couple — Hiroko Sakakibara and Simon Sliva — who lifted and wrapped their limbs around each other lovingly and with beautiful intensity; “Rise”, a set of dances set to U2 music; “Routines” a piece that started out with a group of dancers warming up, then donning exaggerated Forsythian ballet costumes — the women in saucer-like tutus, the men in short skirts danced to a collage of industrial music (with clanking bells, train whistles, etc.); and “Constructs for 4” a nice lyrical piece for three men and one woman to soft violin music by Bach.
I guess my main issue with Rhoden’s choreography (aside from “Broken”) is that the dancing, while very rhythmic and musical, doesn’t really amount to a discernible theme or create a specific feeling. For example, the “Rise” music was great fun, it was like traveling through time, remembering all those U2 songs from when I was in college. But the songs are all about something and that’s their genius — the sentiment they convey, not just that they’re danceable. For example, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is in part about race relations and our society’s continual failure to achieve social justice. I didn’t see anything evoking that here — bodies moving rhythmically – jumping happily, skipping, running, doing brilliantly high battemants — but nothing that made the song’s lyrics, its spiritual rhythm, come alive. And it was that way with the rest as well — not only the piece danced to U2 songs, but Ave Maria, the one danced to the violins (though this one was choreographed by Igal Perry) — yes, the lifts were lovely, but neither created an atmosphere for me or told a story or made me really feel anything. Still, I have to say, Complexions is worth seeing for “Broken” alone. And for the dancers and their sculpted muscularity — some are quite built — and which they somehow spectacularly combine with hyper flexibility and an air of feathery lightness. And the other dances are fun — the music is great, and the dancing is rhythmic, just not evocative enough or emotionally all there to me.
And same with the Foniadakis. Actually, I was going to wait until I had some time to do research on the history of “Rite of Spring,” and watch some of the other versions (there are many!) but then my post wouldn’t go up until the run is long over. I know the original Stravinsky music and Nijinsky dance involve violence, sexuality, fertility rites, and depictions of young girls dancing themselves to death. And I know many versions — like that by Pina Bausch, and the Joffrey — are danced by an ensemble. This was danced by one woman — the seemingly indefatigable Toumpakari. She was dressed only in a tribal thong, a grassy-looking fabric lining the waist, with paint marks on her forearms, calves and forehead.
Before the music began, she walked around stage, with kind of a prancing limp, as if performing a tribal custom. When the Stravinksy began, she seemed on the verge of a sexual awakening, her hip-jutting, pelvis-rolling movements and facial expressions very sexually suggestive. Then, she began performing more of an African dance, throwing her arms and shoulder over her waist, kicking out with flexed feet. She began fighting an imaginary person, lashing out, scratching, growling at him. This was followed by more frenzied movement, until she worked herself up so she nearly collapsed. She fell to the floor, slowly rose, bent over deeply from the waist, looked at her hands, horrified — they appeared to be turning into claws before her eyes, she couldn’t control the fingers. Finally, she gained control over her body and began the African-like movement again, running around stage with the limp, starting the process anew. Each phase seemed to repeat several times until, finally, at the end, out of breath, she slowly looked over to the side of the room, where her street clothes lay, walked over very slowly and calmly, and changed from costume into jeans and white t.
I feel like I’d need to do more research on the dance history to form a better judgment of the choreography, but I was highly impressed by Toumpakari.
For other perspectives, here is Roslyn Sulcas and here Christopher Atamian on Complexions; here is Claudia La Rocco and here and here Oberon on Foniadakis.
Complexions shows through November 30; “Rite of Spring” through this Sunday.
