Dance Review: Face the Music ... and Dance!

Thursday night I packed my bags for New York’s Best Staycation… a trip to the FringeNYC…  a festival of over 201 shows breaking onto the city’s performing arts scene. “Face the Music… and Dance!”, produced by Rachel Routh and directed by Tina Croll, celebrated five contemporary modern choreographers and enjoyed sold out crowds this weekend at 440 Studios on Lafayette Street!  From nudity in blow-up swimming pools to microphone wires to the live music of Japanese shakuhachi flutes….  it was a pleasant evening for dance.

The show begins shortly after I treat myself to a Starbucks iced caramel macchiato and casually stroll down the street toward the theatre space….  Suddenly a sprite little dancer, shadowed by her team of live musicians, catches my eye.  It is Noa Sagie, choreographer and dancer for the evening’s first piece- giving away a free pre-show in the streets to a throng of passer-bys… all sporting facial expressions that range from intrigue to utter confusion.  I study her for a while as she whirls her way through passing strangers, playfully flirting in her red dress with lots of heightened animation.  Once I decide to leave the curious street dancer behind, I find myself in the elevator, uber-cheerfully greeted by yet another dancer in character, Hyosun Choi, telling everyone to “keep clean” as she wipes down the walls of the elevator frantically.  Another bit of foreshadowing?

Finally, I reach the 3^rd floor where many disappointed Fringe-show-goers are turned away… SOLD OUT.  Very exciting for the production team!  I, with my iDANZ ticket firmly in grasp, enter proudly and take my spot in the front row!  Go iDANZ!

Once seated, I take note of yet another pre-show dancer, lying in a tiny blow-up kiddie pool, looking relaxed and exploratory while the crowd files in.  The music team attempts to butter up the audience with some “Tell me your name, I’ll tell you mine” jokes…which may or may not have fallen a little flat.  Good intentions though.  They get me to remember their names - Rick, Brian, and Perry!

The first piece is by far my favorite. Danced ever so graciously by all four female dancers, “Degas duck dag” fuses artful nudity with silly humor, then hits it home with intensely choreographed , athletic contemporary movement. Choreographer Noa Sagie truly understands how to make the most of a musical moment and doesn’t take herself too seriously which makes for an uplifting refreshment.

She opens the piece with her “pool dancer” standing up in her bathing suit, turning to the back, and removing her top.  Hair flowing, she explores the landscape of her body, which I must say was stunning, conveying the experience of taking a shower for the first time.  As she discovers herself, so does the audience… in a big way.  What starts out as profile nudity, turns quickly into a ready-or-not full frontal experience!  Not sure how I feel about it, but one thing is certain, this dancer has guts!

The piece quickly changes gears when her three sidekicks enter wearing buckle-under-the-chin swim-caps and shimmering cocktail dresses.  They gallivant about the stage like characters from a strange dream, armed with squeaky rubber duckies and big personalities.  The piece gathers momentum and really shows off Sagie’s gift for utilizing contemporary movement while simultaneously delving into the quirky colors of the music.  The intention is to awaken Sagie’s view of Edward Degas’ paintings.  Let’s hope we see more from her soon!  Dancers: Noa Sagie, Hyosun Choi, Madelyn Biven, Meredith Blouin, and Sara Genoves-Sylvan.

Wooden Heart, featuring choreography by Julian Barnett offers some interest to the evening with two dancers, male and female, dancing around a microphone and wire. The piece opens with Jocelyn Tobias, microphone in hand, anxiously pacing around the stage- “Dare I speak into the mic?”, her body says.  In the background, we hear a radio hour talking about how men can hold their liquor better than women.  Eventually, to the sounds of Portishead, she sings (quite well) and then partners with Julian Barnett himself.  Barnett offers vivid, fresh choreography – my favorite part being the final section- Barnett acting as a puppet as Tobias stands behind him, arms on top of his, maneuvering his body in a seamless necklace of transitions.

Jet Stream, by Maura Ngyuen Donohue, adds live music into the  mix with three flute players with big personalities. Donohue offers solid choreography, danced by herself and Julian Barnett, plus the well-placed musicians, (playing serene tunes reminiscent of a day at the spa), but I must admit this is the least memorable piece of the evening.

Choreographer Heidi Latsky jolts us with testosterone in What Would You Have Done?, a modern duo between dancers Jeffrey Freeze and Luke Murphy.  Inspired by the ending scene of the Reader, (which I have yet to see) this piece explores humanity and unity in response to hate.  The staggeringly tall and lean Murphy contrasts greatly with the compact Freeze, and intensity only rises from the start of the piece to the finish.  Highly physical and mind-numbingly serious, we wonder what is coming next as the two boys throw themselves and each other around the floor in an urgent shirtless frenzy!

Finally, director and choreographer Tina Croll brings a party in black to the stage with The Stamping Ground.  Croll uses a cornucopia of dancers, with a wide range of shapes, sizes, ages, and abilities to convey her message that gathering people together is our only hope in supporting each other through these difficult times.  The pack runs around in circles, seemingly following each other, then performs simplistic choreography in unison to display the beauty of individuality- joined together.    Dancers: Einy Aam, Mona Afable, Philippa Anderson, Erin DeLuca-Benson, Celia Devoe, Michelle Durante, Michelle Gilligan, Andrea Gise, Scott Lewis, Marissa Maislin, Ashley Marinelli, Alicia McConnell, Alexandra Mount-Campbell, Carla Reitano, Rossana Russo, Morgelyn Tenbeth-Ward, Helena Teply-Figman

Overall, a successful evening for dance!  I highly recommend for any of you bored dancers…  Take a staycation and take advantage of the many Fringe and NYMF shows coming up in this city!  Remember, in supporting each other, we all succeed in sharing this art we all love.

iDANZ Critix Corner Official Dance Review by  Sheena DiMatteo Performance:  Face the Music ... and Dance!  -as part of FringeNYC 2009 Choreographers: Noa Sagie, Julian Barnett, Heidi Latsky, Tina Croll Venue:  Robert Moss Theater, New York City Performance Date:  August 27, 2009 www.iDANZ.com

 

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Dance Review: Circuits, Patricia Noworol Dance Company

As part of this year's New York City Fringe Festival, Patricia Noworol Dance Company explores the relationships in a powerful new work between choreographer and dancer, man and woman, self and body.

Performed at the Robert Moss Theatre in the East Village, this piece begins with a series of false starts and repetitions.  This establishes a setting that seems to move smoothly between set movement, improvisation, and simulated improvisation.  Christina Noel Reaves begins with a luscious, striking solo that sets the intensity of the piece.  In a powerful triple duet, the women and men run and jump onto their partners.  Chelsea Bonosky continuously throws herself onto a man, who throws her off every time.  Patricia, on her microphone commands Chelsea to take off her shirt.   A strange power-play develops as Chelsea does so, starts (actually?) crying facing upstage, and then faces the audience with her top half naked.  Some beautiful movement evolves.  Then Christina enters (also topless) eating chips!  This excellently timed activity adds humor to an otherwise dark situation.

Throughout the piece Patricia makes corrections over the microphone to the dancers:  “be more manly” etc.  It alternates between annoying criticisms to telling the dancers to speak.

In one particularly perceptive comment, a male dancer says, “I have to rationalize myself being here,” pointing to one of the central issues of dance.  Why do we dance?  Does it mean anything?  Patricia indirectly answers the question by telling him to do a bridge, and “open your heart.”

The piece continues with the men walking across the stage in various directions and the women running around them. There is an image of Patricia wearing only a thong, shining with rope lights hung around her neck. The vignettes follow different trajectories that always come back to the home of dance… movement, expression, and exhaustion make the world go around.

Photography by Quinn Batson

iDANZ Critix Corner 
Official Dance Review by Leah Sands
Performance: Circuits
Choreographer(s):  Patricia Noworol Dance Co.
Venue: Robert Moss Theatre, New York City
Date:  August 25, 2009
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Theater Review: Scandalous People at the Fringe

Scandalous People: A Sizzling Jazzical marks the latest effort from New York's burgeoning Fringe Festival, which chose as a slogan this year, "New York's Best Staycation."  Unfortunately, Scandalous People hardly provides an excuse to stay for the second act, much less stay in the City.  This sloppy, amateurish production, despite its respectable cast and its saucy title, disappoints at nearly every opportunity.  It's like sitting down to watch Top Chef and all anybody can make is Jell-O.  You're like, "That's it?  That's the best you can do?"

The show has a decent premise:  black entertainers in late '20s Harlem get a chance at the big leagues.  Of course, that chance comes with strings attached.  Plot line sound familiar?  In this version, however, Effie isn't pushed off to the sidelines.  Her name is Dez, and she's married to the big cheese, although he still has a thing for her sister.  But the love triangle isn't really the main plot.  Dez and her husband Dewey run a show at a Harlem speakeasy, and a gangster wants to put it on Broadway.  There are all sorts of issues that naturally arise when a gangster wants to put a show on Broadway.  For example, Mae West wants to be in the show, and there's a drag queen called Trixie.  Sound confusing?  It is.  The structural problems are complicated by the fact that the microphones cut out at least once a scene.  Given that I saw the show on the second to last night, I can only assume that the sound department never did and never will get it together, and the disjointed, chemistry-free scenes heighten the chaos, instead of any dramatic tension.  Take, for example, the scene where the love triangle is introduced.  (And I'm paraphrasing shamelessly here):

SISTER: I want to be in your show, Mr. Dewey.

DEWEY: Mwah mffff wlll. (They do a single time step. She impresses him by doing-- oh my God!-- a triple time step.) You can dance, mmfffflll.

DEZ' SISTER: Mwah hdllmrff. (She throws her leg up on his shoulder.)

Mwah, mwah, mwah?  You'd think you were watching a Charlie Brown's Christmas special and the muffled mouth teacher just entered the room!   Anywho, we can only assume that he drags her awkwardly off stage to do "the nasty".

In the next scene Dez comes in to audition for the show as well, and for no reason whatsoever Dewey seems to fall for Dez without mentioning that he just did her sister.  The sister, in a completely unrealistic turn of events, decides not to tell her sister that they are "in love," (ie, doing the nasty in the wings) and sings the worst song in the music theatre lexicon almost completely off-pitch.  It is at this point that my sister leans over to remind me of our little sister's 7th grade vocal recital. "At least when they butchered Honey Bun, you had Charles deBarber dancing around in a coconut bra," she whispered.

Nirine S. Brown as the sister is truly a lovely dancer, but she needs to work on her song, to say the least.  The rest of the cast try hard, but polishing turds makes for a long and thankless work. Jennifer Swirderski does a lovely Mae West impression and is terrific in the show's title number.  I find Mae West impressions overdone and predictable, which is ironic given that West herself was completely unpredictable.  However, Swirderski's West does inject the script with some much-needed wit: the lines I could hear are well-played and funny.  Obediah Wright's choreography is smart and enjoyable and boosts the show with some much-needed dynamics.  Eugene Fleming anchors the show as Dewey with his smooth singing voice and easy, yet commanding stage presence.

But despite the show's best intentions: despite its intriguing historical premise and and jazz score, despite the pedigree creative team, including Broadway's own Fredi Walker-Browne directing, who created the role of Joanne in the original Rent, the show never comes together.  It is an agonizing evening of theatre.  If it's between seeing this and seeing your sister's grade school music recital, I would recommend the recital, with or without the coconut bra.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Molly Sorohan
Performance:  Scandalous People
Director/Choreographer:  Fredi Walker-Browne, Director/ Obediah Wright, Choreographer
Venue: Minetta Lane Theatre, New York International Fringe Festival
Performance Date:  Friday, September 28,  2009
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Dance Review: A Noontime Lunch Break Roars with a Bang, Downtown Dance Festival

The Downtown Dance Festival roars in the weekend with a bang for a noontime lunch crowd on Friday, August 21.   Featuring five hot dance companies, Jamal Jackson Dance Company, isadoraNOW, C3 Tap Co-operative, Stefanie Nelson Dance Group, and Naomi Goldberg Haas/Dances for a Variable Population, this free event at Chase Plaza is part of a week-long festival with performances from a wide range of dance companies, all bringing something unique and unusual to the outdoor stage under the sun.

The African rhythm and beats of Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC) begins the afternoon with a triumphant start. With their traditional African garments, the three women and two men in the piece perform borrowing from their extensive knowledge and their pro-styled execution of the African dance vocabulary; the use of the back and their flexed hands are apparent throughout the performance.  The company is highly-energetic and fiercely-dynamic the entire performance, their legs and arms constantly moving without a moment to catch their breaths!  Although the dance comes across as traditional African, there are times when I catch myself thinking that these dancers are using movement that resembles the Hip-Hop vocabulary as well.  The seamlessness in which they transition from traditional African dance to contemporary movement is well-skilled and very well-practiced.  JJDC is truly able to capture the mission of the company, to show the connection between African culture and American culture.

isadoraNOW presents a four-part performance with anti-war connotations.  The pieces are all choreographed by Isadora Duncan, and it is amazing to think that she choreographed this piece in 1921, and, it is still highly relevant to the issues of today!  The first section, Polonaise began as a solo with Elyssa Dru Rosenberg who performs militaristic gestures, stamping her feet and pointing at the crowd. Rosenberg’s grand gestures are accompanied by a white fabric, draped over her shoulder and used as a cape. Four women enter and surround Rosenberg who act as her body guards. Gypsy, performed by Raleigh Veach takes a Spanish interpretation of the piece, with her red seductive scarf and dramatic gestures. Revolutionary, another solo performed by Elyssa Dru Rosenberg really captures the essence of this anti-war piece with her passionate ‘screams’ and the anguish she portrays as she hits the floor in defiance.

The final section is the most memorable for me. Each dancer enters the stage in pairs, with one of them holding a red flag.  The dancers move forward as if they are in battle until the one carrying the flag is “shot down;” the other dancer must take the flag from her and continue on with the battle.  Each dancer is eventually shot down and lying on the ground.  The ending appears as if the dancers are rising to heaven in a Martha Graham style, where the dancers are initiating from their abdomens.

C3 Tap Co-operative features four talented dancers who each bring a unique quality. The four women begin the dance to traditional jazz music. While I watch the performance, I am immediately drawn to the connection amongst these women.   I can really feel their strong bond with each other in the way they move and interact.   The opening section is followed by a duet to My Favorite Things, danced by Brandy Blaha and Courtney Runft.  The dancers perform the same moves but each interprets them in a different way.  My favorite section of C3 is the solo performed by Arleigh Rothenberg to the song Love Song by Sara Bareiles.  With the song so contemporary, her tap combinations lend the dance itself to be something I have never seen before.  I enjoy Rothenberg’s wonderful use of music and the sheer joy she exhibits throughout the piece.   The company ends their program with the four dancers back together again performing to classic tap music.

Performing Venn Duet, by Stefanie Nelson/Stefanie Nelson Dance Group, is Julian Barnett and Ofelia Loret de Mola.  The duet is a push-and-pull of emotions between the two characters as lovers, with the dancers constantly intertwining their legs, leaning and pushing within their interaction.  Most noteworthy is Nelson’s use of music.  Reminiscent of "out-of-the-blue" mood changes and emotions that come with any serious relationship, the music too experiences several "mood' changes where the dancers suddenly switch into completely different movement phrases or style.  In Venn Duet, Barnett and Loret de Mola are excellent complements to each other. They lift each other with equal ease; they give nice counter intensity as each always tries to get in front of the other.  With Loret de Mola moving around the stage excitedly as a way of communicating her frustrations to her partner, the piece ends very powerful.

Naomi Goldberg Haas/Dances for a Variable Population closes out the Downtown Dance Festival's Friday performance.  Haas’s vision is to make dances with diverse communities and professional dancers in the same setting.  Her goal is to bring dance back to the people and to show that anyone has the ability to dance no matter how old you are or what you look like.  For this performance, the dancers perform Excerpts from Fanfare which begins as a sort of jousting game during medieval times. The variable ages and abilities of the dancers is what really sticks out for me.  It is incredible to watch highly trained dancers performing with dancers who have had little to no training and with dancers who are much older.  A beautiful moment is when the dancers perform various duets between women of varied ages.  The eldest woman of the group leans and falls onto the shoulders and backs of three dancers who carry her back and forth with respectfulness and care.  So telling through their movement of their reverence for her... This is such a powerful moment.

The uniting factor among the five companies that I watched on Friday is that each company is accessible to a wide range of people.  Either through the music choices or the theme of the dances, it is apparent that everyone in the audience, from the kids on a camp field trip to the business men on their lunch breaks, that they all are having a blast watching the performance.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Amanda Keller
Performance:  Downtown Dance Festival, NYC
Choreographers: Jamal Jackson Dance Company, isadoraNOW,  C3 Tap Co-operative, Stefanie Nelson Dance Group, Naomi Goldberg Haas/Dances For a Variable Population  
Performance Date:  August 21, 2009 12-2pm
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Dance Review: Sad day for Downtown, Dance, and Festivals

The opening day of the 28th Annual Downtown Dance Festival was not the best representation of what is happening in downtown, or in dance or in any festival I have been to.   I found the program to be long, boring, and under rehearsed.  There are some saviors, but overall, the first day of the 28th Downtown Dance Festival should have been a great opportunity to get people turned on to dance... but I left totally turned off.

The program opens with a captivating Bharatanatyam (South Indian Classical Dance) performer.   Janaki Rangarajan is totally fierce!  She is able to move parts of her face in rhythm with the music in ways I had no idea it was even possible.  She is a great way to begin the afternoon.  I am completely enthralled.  Yay!

The next group to perform is Battery Dance Company.   Their submission is a long, an unoriginal piece entitled, Layapria.   Although it is choreographed in 1998, it looks 10 years older than that. Worse, one of the dancers spends most of the time, while she is dancing, trying to watch the other dancers, and she was still not with any of them.  The choreography does not showcase the company well, and I have no idea what the piece is supposed to be about.  The only saving grace is Carmen Nicole.  She is what every dancer aspires to be.  When she is on stage alone, it is like watching her lead an army of thousands, and when she is sharing the stage with the company, she is the only one I watch.   If not for her I probably would have left. I can't get enough of dancers that are confident, beautiful, dramatic, and original.

Next was more solo work from the first performer which is cool and different. She is fun and great to watch!  Which is followed by another piece from Battery called String of Beads, which is a combination of works choreographed by the company, some of it is pretty decent, some of it is really bad.  Editing is a wonderful tool; people should use it a bit more often.

The afternoon closes with a complete atrocity, Dance China NY.   I am appalled at how under rehearsed, poorly choreographed, poorly costumed, and even more poorly it is performed.  It is an awful finish to what was an afternoon of less than acceptable work.

The program is occasionally monitored by the director of the Battery Dance Company, Jonathan Hollander.  He is a very reserved quiet man, who complained about the state of dance in NY and tried to inform us of the importance of the presence of dance.  If you want to sell something you need a sales person with charisma.  Especially with the dire state of dance right now, there is never a better time to show NYC how great, entertaining, and inspiring dance can be.  Monday's show just totally missed the mark! 

I left angry, hungry, hot and tired. The worst part was when they tried to get the dwindling audience to participate in some Chinese fan dancing.... I had to leave, I was embarrassed.

iDANZ Critix Corner 
Official Dance Review by Dante Puleio 
Performance:  The 28th Downtown Dance Festival
Performers:   Battery Dance Company, Janaki Rangarajan, Dance China NY
Venue:  Chase Plaza
Performance Date:  August 17, 2009, Noon
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Dance Review: Ballet Noir - Fierce Infusion of Hip-hop and Ballet, Style and Grace

A beautiful dance company, Ballet Noir embraces a beautiful day in the East River Park of Manhattan, bringing the gift of dance to the gathered crowd. Presented by City Parks Foundation, this summer program features dance performances free to the public in various parks throughout New York City and its suburbs.

This afternoon’s program is set off with a warm-up master class led by Calvin Wiley. The aerobic dance routine infuses the styles of African, hip-hop, and Latin dance. Though it is a hot summer day, participants enthusiastically do their best to nail the combination.

A diverse program, Ballet Noir, creatively begins by having one of the dancers come through the audience, iPod inspiring her funky moves and sporadic verbalizations as she jams out to unheard tunes.  Soon audible music flows from the band-shell and dancers fill the stage. The company is beautiful, composed of well-toned bodies that undulate and extend to incredible heights!  The dancers perform with fantastic technique, which is required in their choreography filled with multiple turns and explosive jumps.  Not only are the dancers made to change direction, but style as well.  Within one sequence, steps are incorporated from various forms of dance including ballet, hip-hop, African, modern- to name a few.

A highlight of the program was a romantic love duet.  The couple intersperses expressive developes with pushes and shoves, depicting a tumultuous relationship. The partnering is captivating with its interlocking of dance styles, acting and mime.

As a whole, the program shows off the diversity of Ballet Noir’s repertoire.  There is an interesting piece depicting people lost in an insane asylum, that contrasts nicely with the opening piece seemingly designed to show off the dancers’ abilities and artistic passion.  Most of the costuming consists of a grayscale, white and black, perhaps fitting with the name of the company.  The choreography and staging wonderfully shows off the dancer’s abilities in both unison and simultaneously executed solo work.  This individualization of the dancers is extended even more so as some dancers perform in pointe shoes, while others in flats, and some in socks defying expectations breaking free from the norm.

The program concludes with a lovely spiritual piece accompanied by a live vocalist.  The vocalist weaves amongst the dancers, all dressed in brilliant washes of color creating a vibrant visual connection between the music and the dance.  As Ballet Noir continues to grow and flourish as a contemporary ballet company, they certainly have the potential to be a real force in furthering the future aesthetic of contemporary dance.

Photography credits:  Artist - Whitney Brown; Art Direction - Sophy Holland;  Photography - Justin Hyte;  Illustration - Adam Larson

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Lea McGowan
Performance: Ballet Noir
Venue: East River Park, City Parks Dance Summerstage, New York City
Performance Date: Saturday August 15, 2009
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Sir MacMillian, Duato, and Young Soon Hue.... Oh My! -Tulsa Ballet at The Joyce

 Sir MacMillian, Duato, and
Young Soon Hue....
Oh My!

Tulsa Ballet is tearing through New York City right now, and I have had the pleasure of seeing their brilliance Tuesday Night at the Joyce Theatre.   Although they have not been seen in NYC in over 20 years,  I wish to say this . .  Tulsa Ballet better not make us wait another 20 before coming back to town because it has spectacular performers that need to be seen with the chops to perform very difficult work with veracity, technical perfection, beautiful precision, and personality! 

The evening starts with Sir Kenneth Macmillian's, Elite Syncopations.  Though I found that most of the choreography itself to be a little lack luster, the company members of Tulsa sold it.  With such over the top performances which matched their eye popping costumes, I am immediately seduced by the quirky and fun piece simply because the company holds nothing back, and share all they have right up front.  Group sections are danced in synch without missing a step; duets and solos are performed with honesty and connection to each other and with the audience.  They are a breath of fresh air and I couldn't wait for more.

Nacho Duato, one of my favorite choreographers, has his piece up next.  Originally set on Compania Nacional Danza in 1996, Por Vos Muero seems as though it is created for this company.  Each dancer of the Tulsa Ballet embodies the aesthetic of Duato's intricate work perfectly ... especially the unstoppable and gorgeously ferocious, Serena Chu. 

Where to begin with such a fierce piece??? 

The opening, dancers slowly running in place in flesh tone tights, accompanied by old Spanish music and text, immediately sets an entirely different tone of the previous work.  Before you know it, you have women, with hand-held masks running dressed in 18th century looking dresses, flowing beautifully throughout with gorgeous dancing and choreography, then in come the men in velvet capes, with old church incense burners hanging from chains encircling, hiding, and revealing a soloist.  The piece completely takes my breath away.  It is a whirlwind of ferocious dancing, and phenomenally performed neo-classical work!  I am left totally breathless by the piece and Tulsa's deep understanding and performance of it.

Finishing off the program is This Is Your Life, choreographed by Young Soon Hue on Tulsa in 2008. An interesting take on the 1950's game show, the piece begins with the characters sitting in chairs across the stage and an MC talking to and interpreting for the "contestants" on the "show."   After hearing a brief synopsis about each of their stories, you get a performance from each of them, solos, duets, group sections.  It is another display of the company's virtuosic dancers excelling at contemporary classical work.  For This is Your Life, it goes beyond just dancers doing the steps well; these artists have quality and fire.  Each dancer brings themselves to the marley and leave nothing unexposed.  I feel that I know each one of them so well by the end of this piece; I am a little sad for it to be over.

I have never left a ballet performance feeling so enraptured and inspired by not only the showmanship, but also the life the dancers bring to the work.  These divas are NO JOKE!!  Watch out because Oklahoma has a little secret and, thanks to the performance I just saw at The Joyce, the cat is out of the bag.  Tulsa you can hide no longer, and NYC hopes to see a lot more of you.

 
iDANZ Critix Corner 
Official Dance Review by Dante Puleio
Performance: Tulsa Ballet Company
Venue:  The Joyce Theater, New York City
Date:  August 11, 2009
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Dance Review: Da∙Da∙Dance says "Yeah right," Da∙Da∙Dance Project at Joyce SoHo

Da∙Da∙Dance Project is a company of two; Korean born Eun Jung Choi-Gonzalez, and Guillermo Ortega Tanus of Mexico, its conception inspired by Dadaism.  The literal translation of da da into English is "yeah yeah," as in a sarcastic "yeah right."  With reoccurring moments of absurdity, Da∙Da∙Dance Project seems to be saying "yeah right" to conventional modern dance throughout the evening.

In Ploy, the first of four duets, the two enter, their bodies covered in squares of brightly colored tissue paper, like human piñatas.  They stand under a stark square light, covering their faces with their hands.  Like a game of peek-a-boo, they open their hands, framing their face to speak and then close them again.  This on/off switch leaves us with overlapping, disjointed bits of stories, incoherent as a whole, but enough to suggest the theme of a couple building a life together, a house, a baby, etc.

As the piece builds momentum, they begin to shed their tissue paper, covering the floor more and more, and their bodies less and less.  Their movement vocabulary is contemporary, punctuated by quirky movements and theatricality.  The two have a similar physicality, a beautiful way of moving, and personalities which you can't help but love.  

Short films serve as a pallet cleanser between pieces.  Directed by Eun Jung and staring another couple, these absurd shorts show insight into the director's sense of humor and reflect the "yeah right" attitude of Dadaism.

In Blood Orange, Eun Jung stands facing upstage in a short, sexy dress. Guillermo manipulates her like a Barbie doll while serenading her.  He sings "love me tender..." as Barbie takes on a mind of her own.  Her movements go faster and faster and eventually go haywire.  Guillermo, no longer in the power position, struggles to regain control of her as his vocals speed up to comic gibberish.

Simply placing a man and a woman onstage sets up a relationship. Throughout the evening, Da∙Da∙Dance Project shows aspects of a relationship in an abstract, disjointed way.  It is not linear.  It is not a love story, but at the same time it is.  The two dance with an intimacy which suggests they could be lovers, combined with a playful teasing which could be of a brother and sister.

Tiny Voices by guest choreographer, Helena Franzén of Sweden, is the only pure dance piece of the evening.  It incorporates a more traditional vocabulary, tendus, rond de jambes, etc., but composed in a contemporary way.  Crisp rhythmic foot work, combined with quirky shoulder isolations, make the piece visually interesting and moments of sustained counterbalances create a connection that goes beyond just dance.

An excerpt from Blueprint wraps up the evening.  In raincoats they stand facing upstage, humming a minimal melody as if standing at the edge of a canyon, calling into the void.  Eventually music with a dance beat comes in, and along with it comes quirky movement, in particular a hop forward with a pelvic thrust, done in a nonchalant manner which exaggerates the comedy of it.

As is the nature of any program consisting of short pieces, it's hard to get into anything deeply.  Butter and Fly: Intends to Walk consists of whatever repertory the company has managed to create in its young life, since 2008.  The only thread throughout the evening is them.  Eun Jung and Guillermo have the ability to maintain interest for a longer period of time and to go deeper into what they are doing.  It is my hope that they may drop the short piece format in the future and create an evening from start to finish, a journey from beginning to end.  If they are willing to take me on a journey, I'll be more than happy to go with them.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Julie Fotheringham
Performance: Da∙Da∙Dance Project, Butter and Fly: Intends to Walk
Venue: Joyce SoHo, New York City
Date: August 1, 2009
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