Dance Review: Alexandance at Triskelion Arts

Alexandance's first full length show, A Vertiable Smorgasbord, is a fascinating glimpse into worlds both funny and fierce.  Presented by Triskelion Arts, choreographers Alex Springer and Xan Burley lay it all on the line in a jam-packed evening of short dances ranging from wittily astute to traumatically effective.     

The gems of the evening are two duets between Burley and Springer themselves. The first, from 2009 entitled Spilt, is a clever window into a marital relationship laced with tension and high romance.  It begins in a mini living room; Burley is in a flowered dress and white jacket, Springer holds her on his lap.  In 50's era glasses, a sweater vest and a huge grin, he struggles to keep his hand over her mouth. When she finally breaks free, pearls come popping out like little white secrets.

Second, Springer and Burley dance Man + Woman, a duet which skips the trauma of relationships and focuses instead on the awkwardness of the first attraction and the satisfaction of the final moment.  Beginning as running and off-timed flights through space, this dance ends in a totally satisfying kiss.

The darkest piece of the evening, Microfiche, is a no-holds-barred journey through depravity, isolation and trauma.  Five dancers clad in night gowns and white socks dance around, under and through a blue tarp who's rasping, shifting movement serves as a metaphor for the (not so) hidden pain in all of us.  This dance makes the audience feel just as uncomfortable as the writhing dancers through the use of incredibly loud and grating sound.  The technique is successful, if pain and anger are what I am supposed to feel, but I can't help but be a tad offended after being made to sit with my hands over my ears for more than 10 minutes.  The point is open for debate...

Whether it is amusement or empathy that we feel in the theater, one can't help but be excited by the promise of new dance makers like Alexandance in this often formidable city.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Meghan Frederick
Performance:  Alexandance
Choreography: Alex Springer and Xan Burley
Venue:  Triskelion Arts
Show Date:  March 27, 2010
www.iDANZ.com

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Dance Review: Bring Your Lungs, Amy Marshall at Ailey Citigroup

Go see Amy Marshall at Ailey Citigroup to witness the polarities one dance company can embody in 90 minutes of work.  Brought to life with some of the most confident technique and fierce execution of ballet and modern choreography, Marshall's dancers bring their audience to roaring cheers numerous times.

Opening with 2005's English Suite, a sextet clad in nude Grecian dresses and shiny tights leaps about with grandiose, virtuosic movements.  Like spritely nymphs in the forest, they wield their technique as if involved in a large scale show and tell.  Wearing eyes of constant wonderment as if part of their costume, I often wonder where their joy comes from, but I suppose the height of their jumps speaks for itself.  In five parts, this piece begins to expose Marshall's penchant for either uplifted staccato movements paired with perma-grins or wilted weeping willows with arms and eyes full of sorrow.  No matter what way you look at it, this piece shows stunning sculpted legs taking flight.

In Marshall's world premiere of A Gift, she dances at 7months pregnant in a snug green dress amidst cascading light.  After English Suite's classical tonnage, Gabrielle Roth's more visceral percussion showcases her endearment for the life growing within her and how that emanates into the life of her limbs.  Playing with the underbelly of the rhythm it seems to speak to the greater understanding of life a pregnancy yields.  When one heart beats next to another, it's bound to expand your sense of musicality and Marshall does not shy away from this sensation.  She exits back-turned to the audience with her arms nestling her womb.  A true gift to everyone in the audience... 

To combat the ethereal quality of English Suite, the same cast comes out in glowing red costumes carving the air with aggressive arms and legs, matching the ferocity of The Jack Quartet's strings.  Another world premiere, Riding the Purple Twilight alternates tricks like illusions with pendulum-esque lifts as Marshall sprints the line between showoff and showcase masterfully.  Her dancer's seem to answer all calls of 'is this possible?' with yes, yes, yes! as they too understand that milking their strengths is not necessary given their abundance.  If you will, the Amy Marshall Company gives the notion of "bunheads" a new mystique.  As volatile vixens in red, the female cast members lead the men into airborne tangos on fire.

2000's Askew continues to transmute my first impression of Marshall's work with her chosen sextet in S&M-esque costumes dancing as intensely as their costumes dictate.  Sculpted arms slice through the air as they travel the space with the precision of a world class marching band.  A bird's eye view would have revealed this piece as a true kaleidoscope of wonder - constantly turning under and over itself revealing new perspective.  Marshall works as an over caffeinated sculptor here with dancer's ever so equipped.  The rivalry of men versus women makes it tough to pick sides.

In Excerpts from Two Duets and a Quartet, a technically proficient, albeit listless pairing in Laura Halzack and James Samson, graces the stage.  Halzack moves with grace but her impetus to move seems to rely on Samson, similar to a plastic ballerina's movement that stems from the winding of a knob of a young girl's the jewelry box.  Despite this, Halzack is the crown jewel in this piece, a romantic heroine with increasing charm through the hem of her gorgeous costume.  Unfortunately for Samson, his black tee-shirt and pants blend into the black box making him a "helping hand" with little more than that as an identity.  Towards the end, an intimate spooning moment transforms into a glorious lift - perhaps the place this piece should grow from to offer up both dancers more than the identity of "jewelry box gem" and "hired help."

In the world premiere of Going for the Gold, Olympic dreams accost the audience with a cast of 14 entering in swim caps in unitards.  Immediately garnering raucous laughter from the audience, this piece may not win the gold but does it's damndest for the next ten minutes.  Layering phrase upon phrase of movement atop one another like constructing a thickly woven quilt, it reveals Marshall's depth of vision.  Emulating the struggle to get the gold, the cast's raw work spits out sweat through turns and leaps that earn several mid-piece catcalls and cheers.

Get to Ailey's Citigroup to see the many characters Marshall can illuminate within her small cast and bring your booming cheering voice, you'll need it!

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Eileen Elizabeth 
Performance: Amy Marshall Dance Company
Choreography:  Amy Marshall
Venue: Citgroup Theater
Show Date: March 27, 2010 
www.iDANZ.com

 

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iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.

Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

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iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – May 1.
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Dance Review: Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon at City Center, NYC

Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon's weekend at City Center is a ballet feast.  Serving up everything from a tidbit of Swan Lake to an exciting new work from ballet's newest it-boy Christopher Wheeldon to former ABT stars, Corella's brand new company shows that it has the mettle to not only bring more ballet to Spain, but to teach us Americans a thing or two as well.

Corella's own choreography, String Sextet, starts us off on a neo-classical journey through tight shifts in space and fiery technique, best exemplified by the diminutive Kazuko Omori and gangly Joseph Gatti.  She is light and precise in a innovative jeté jump where she is pulled magnetically back to her starting point.  Gatti is youthful, confident, and musical, working well within Tchaikovsky's mesmerizing score.

However, the most technically exciting of the evening is Herman Cornejo. A former dancer with American Ballet Theatre, Cornejo steals the show in the Black Swan pas de duex.  His jumps are so buoyant, his turns so spot-on that several audible whistles are heard from the balletomanes sitting behind me.  He pulls one pirouette series, ending in such a beautiful plié dévelopé, it makes me shiver.

We first see dancing from Corella himself in a duet for him and his sister Carmen, choreographed by Maria Pages.  Solea is a tribute to Flamenco's rich history in Spain and Carmen flies through fiery flamencoesque foot work en pointe while Angel slices through jumps with multiple beats.  They trade off and play with traditional flamenco structures and rhythms in a satisfying re-interpretation of the form.  One sees here why Angel has been such an audience favorite for the last decade-plus.  He is a ball of energy, every move bursting with such finesse and charisma, one can't help but love him.

Finally, Carmen Corella impresses me again as the first soloist in Wheeldon's relatively new work Danse a la Grand Vitesse.  She is clad, as are the rest of the females, in a leotard with vertical black stripes and nude pointe shoes.  This look emphasizes her already long torso, and as she morphs through Wheeldon's contorted shapes, she maintains a weird and fluid grace that is transcendent.  I love Wheeldon's ability to move static shapes through space in a way that questions the resiliency of the human form.  His women are constantly spinning in the arms of their men.  Down is up and up is down in this rocking and energetic new piece.

One hopes that Corella and Wheeldon, two of ballet's favorite young men, will continue to bring new ballet to the world stage.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Meghan Frederick
Performance:  Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon
Choreography: Angel Corella, Christopher Wheeldon, Maria Pages, Leonid Lavrovsky, 
Venue:  City Center
Show Date:  March 19th, 2010
www.iDANZ.com

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iDANZ Supports

Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.

Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses, and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

The iDANZ Commitment
For every new person
who signs-up to be a member of the
iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – April 1.
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Dance Review: Kyle and Rosenblit Hit St. Marks Church

Jen Rosenblit and Katy Pyle's split bill this week at St. Marks church is one of the most intelligently irreverent new dance shows I've seen this year.  Rarely does work from emerging artists appear this well developed, this well rehearsed, and this conceptually clear.

Rosenblit opens the program with her newest duet, When Them, for herself and long time collaborator Addys Gonzalez.  They are in the space as we arrive, Gonzalez in navy shorts and a tealish green cotton t-shirt, Rosenblit in a saggy leotard, navy on the bottom, forest green on top. He is a long man with brown skin, a shaved head and a mustache, and she has strong legs, wide shoulders and a low, heavy stomach.  They pace around the open space of St Marks church, pausing to perch on the gray risers or crouch in the well-lit dance space.  After we are seated, the dance unfolds as a series of disjointed moments:  deliberately half-assed pointing, elongated hinges with one foot extended and appealingly pointed, runs forward with hands grasping invisible strings and feet turned in.  Each gesture seems to reference something, something pathetic perhaps but then, on the edge of sense or series, they turn away from whatever it could have been.

They morph again, this time her head is against the backs of his knees and they walk, and then trot, like a horse. This is all in silence and there are several moments to question the seriousness of this choice, but they pull it off with such aplomb that as a viewer I go from disbelief to laughter and back again before they finally move on.  As the lights flicker, frail whining sounds approximating music accompany the dancers as they run up and down the length of St Marks, kicking and reaching ahead of themselves.  One begins to be moved by the layers of sound, wavering lights, and the over-locking rhythm and sensuality of the pairs' extremely sensual mini-moments, but, then they abruptly shift again, into a tender investigation of lightness and weight. She lifts her thigh across his chest and he holds her, she gently lifts off her one pointed foot, like a bubble bobbing along.

Eventually, Rosenblit and Gonzalez approach the sides of the stage and pick up harmonicas. They stick them in their mouths, hands free, and as they begin to move again their breathing creates sound, obviously similar to the "music" we heard earlier.  The joke again is on us as we realize that even the slight bit of emotionality we are allowed to feel in the "danciest" section of the work so far, is, also, completely denied, which, it turns out, is even more heartbreaking.

Finally, Rosenblit pushes Gonzalez over to the edge of the performance space.  She lifts him onto the first row of the risers, and seems to be talking to the audience in hushed tones.  All of sudden the audiences palms go up and it becomes apparent that Gonzalez is meant to surf the crowd at St Marks church.  He does so, finally passing over my head and exclaiming, "Oh thank you very much," as he goes by.

After intermission, we return to watch Katy Pyle's absurdly funny homage to pop songs, melodrama and hoods.  Her work features three talented performers who can not only dance with committed nonchalance but are also unafraid to sing with the same naturalness.  They begin the work by performing remarkably successful harmonies of "Something's Gonna Die Tonight" by Rancid in blackness.

As Jules Skloot lovingly sings "Candle on the Water," a close up live feed video of her hooded and partially masked face is projected onto a screen hanging over the middle of the dance space.  The video reminds me pointedly of an Abu Graihb torture reel, a thought that ricochets across my mind as the other two dancers manipulate a lumpy string that connects their cloaked and slowly moving bodies.  After this umbilical cord is untied and laid sacrificially on the altar of St. Mark's Church, the obviously pregnant dancer in this trio is stabbed multiple times to the melody of Bette Middler's "Wind Beneath My Wings."   However, she is finally immortalized in a bizarre tribute to motherhood where her belly is revealed through her unzipped leotard, she is crowned, cloaked and worshipped with the very knives that killed her.  The whole cast sings along, including the pianist and a surreally floating saxophonist who glides around the edges of this ritual like a ghost.

I'm not sure what Pyle is trying to say with this very full dance, but her dancers perform it with such admirable comic timing, I don't really mind.

Photo by Yi-Chun Wu / Pictured: Jen Rosenblit and the BottomHeavies

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Meghan Frederick
Performance:  Katy Pyle and Jen Rosenblit
Choreography: Katy Pyle and Jen Rosenblit
Venue:  St Mark's Church
Show Date:  March 11, 2010
www.iDANZ.com

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iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.

Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

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For every new person
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iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – April 1.
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Dance Review: Technology mash-up - koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO presents Blocks of Continuality/ Body, Image and Algorithm at DTW

“Standby . . . Ready . . . Go. Go. Go.”   The technicians, musician, and performers at DTW’s presentation of koosil-ja/danceKumiko’s Blocks of Continuality/ Body, Image and Algorithm prepare for each part of the evening with verbal checks and affirmations.  In most dance performances, there are aspects of the work that the choreographer and performers want hidden: the light board, the sound technician, the costume changes and set-up. Blocks of Continuality, on the other hand, is a multi-media performance in which all aspects of the project are transparent to the audience.  At the front of the stage, technicians sit behind a table covered with laptops, wires, and media players.  They face the stage so that their actions and laptop screens are visible to the audience. The dancers Melissa Guerrero, Ava Heller, and Elise Knudson, begin each section of the work with an efficient confirmation “Go,” and then begin their series of tasks.

For Blocks of Continuality, the DTW space is transformed into a multi-media experiment lab. The three dancers watch twenty-four small screens to obtain their cues, movement phrases, and visual references.  The audience watches two large screens, which project live video footage of these same twenty-four smaller screens.  The dancers move between trios, duets, or solos but maintain their focus on the screens for almost the entire evening.

During the first two sections of Blocks of Continuality, musician Geoff Gersh creates a minimalist soundscape to accompany a pre-recorded score by Geoff Matters.  In the first part of the performance, the small (and subsequently the large) screens play video footage of magazine advertisements and unrelated clips while the dancers incorporate the movements on the screen with their live action.  When a woman on the screen kicks a wall repeatedly, the dancers who are scattered around the space similarly kick the walls, the floor, or the audience’s seats.

For Blocks of Continuality, the second section takes up most of the evening... During this technological “telephone game” of sorts, the dancers watch indigenous and folk dances from around the world and then mimic the movements with varying levels of accuracy and energy.  Because the audience is presented with a video feed of screens the dancers are watching, the image is distorted and slightly blurred.  This creates an interesting circle of reference.  The audience is drawn to the live, present dancers in front of them; however, the dancers’ focus on the small screens shifts the audience’s attention to the large screens. This is an inherently unsatisfying action given the quality of the video and the perceived distance between the audience and the content.

Koosil-ja strips folk dances of their contexts by transferring the movements to her dancers, who are dressed in black, through a media intermediary.  Within this process of abstraction, many of the dynamic and rhythmic aspects of the movements are lost.  Although the dancing is purposely ambiguous and only for a few moments clearly choreographed, there are some memorable moments.  Twice during Blocks of Continuality, a dancer watches another dancer performing a solo on the small screen.  The live dancer then mimics the phrase, slowly making the movements more and more abbreviated until they are almost not moving at all.

During the final installment of the performance, the three dancers strap Nintendo wii remotes to various parts of their costumes and, through this wireless technology, each control the motions of an avatar.  Each of the three large screens follows the journey of an avatar through an online world named “The Slums.”  Amazingly, as the avatars and their human counterparts navigate through the “Slums,” Gersh creates music with his thoughts, thanks to a installation that detects his brainwaves.  Through meditation, Gersh’s brainwaves cause the installation to drum against a wall near the front row of the audience.  However, given the limited range of motion in Koosil-ja’s choreography, the avatars movements are very subtle and the correlation between the live dancing and its effects on the second world are not always clear.   

Koosil-ja shifts the importance of the evening onto the event itself- not necessarily the choreographic product.  Blocks of Continuality succeeds in creating an intriguing installation, an event exploring technology and modes of assimilating movement.  The audience is not meant to be entertained; rather they are present to witness this experiment and contemplate as one would at a museum or gallery, with inspiration and without urgency.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Tze Chun
Performance: Blocks of Continuality/ Body, Image and Algorithm
Choreography: Koosil-ja
Venue: Dance Theater Workshop, New York City
Performance Date: March, 2010
www.iDANZ.com

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iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.

Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

The iDANZ Commitment
For every new person
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iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – April 1.
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