“Diversion of Angels,” “Romper el Piso,” “Softly as I Leave You,” “Noces”
Fall for Dance Festival
City Center
New York, NY
September 24, 2009
By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman
The second program of the 2009 Fall for Dance Festival was unexpectedly all about love, from sweet love as imagined by Martha Graham to sophisticated erotic love in a world premiere tango, on to a dance of tortured separation, and finally the most universal of love’s traditions – the wedding – in a reimagining of “Les Noces.” The evening had more thematic resonance than we’ve come to expect from the eclectic and more episodic Fall for Dance festivals of years past.
This year’s festival is billed as homage to Diaghilev in the 100th anniversary year of the Ballets Russes, but it took some puzzling out to make that link for some of the evening’s works. In a disappointing change of program, “La Chatte,” an early and rarely seen Balanchine work, was dropped. Martha Graham Dance Company’s offering of her 1948 “Diversion of Angels” replaced it.
“Diversion of Angels” is a lush dance focusing on three couples in different stages of love, and surrounded by a small Greek chorus of male and female dancers. Each of the partnered women characterizes some element of love – joyous, adventurous, thoughtful, mature – or perhaps each represents a phase of love in the life of one woman. Katherine Crockett (in white) Blakeley White-McGuire (in red) and Jennifer DePalo (in yellow) danced the familiar but still beautiful, Graham movement with authority and precision. The dancers used the swish of their hair and gowns as well as the architecture of the choreography to enfold their characters’ emotions.
An unavoidable disappointment of Fall for Dance is the use of taped music for the majority of the work. However, there is usually one work each evening to live music, with musicians who share the stage. The dynamic, engaging “Romper el Piso,” a world premiere danced by Tangueros del Sur, was the lucky dance to live music in this program. The new Argentinean company featured seven highly accomplished dancers led by Natalia Hills, the troupe’s choreographer, and her partner Gabriel Misse, a brilliant milonguero (self-taught dancer.) An equally accomplished tango orchestra, including a deeply evocative bass played by Pablo Aslan, accompanied them.
This work, danced in fitted formal wear included both sensual, erotic dance and clever, unexpected movement passages. In one scene, two men were the tango pair. They danced at an unforgiving pace, their energy fueled by friendship and competition. In the central duet between Hills and Misse, he wore a tuxedo and she a black dress with a brightly colored underskirt that glinted as she moved. In a final turn, Misse tore the black outer dress off Hills to reveal the brilliant cerise dress underneath, as the audience gasped in surprise and pleasure. Misse’s relentless ganchos, the slicing kick that is one of tango’s most characteristic moves, created a whirlwind of movement. Like the impeccable dancing, there was not a sloppy moment from the musicians, who gave the whole performance great depth and body.
The second half of the program changed tone entirely. In the evening’s other tour-de-force performance, Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company presented “Softly, As I Leave You,” a passionate, painful duet choreographed by Lightfoot León and danced by Drew Jacoby and Rubinald Pronk. An open, coffin-like golden box stood on end, shining on a pitch-black stage like a bright beacon inhabiting nothingness. Jacoby, squatting inside, unfolded in a claustrophobic solo, literally climbing the walls, writhing in distress. As Jacoby escaped onto the stage, a soft light revealed Pronk emerging from the blackness in a spider-like pose. Each danced their solos around and because of – but not with – each other until, like sea creatures, they finally slithered to connection. In the end, Pronk slid into the golden box, Jacoby squeezing along a wall into the small space to surround and encircle him briefly in what was now his trap. It was she who softly left, and both who were tortured.
The evening’s closing piece was ostensibly the most direct link to Diaghilev: a version of “Les Noces” by Belgian choreographer Stijn Celis danced by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. It was not as effective a tribute and link as expected. This harrowing tale of matrimony opened in silence, as a group of men heaved long benches into place. The harsh Stravinsky score ushered in a dozen Brides of Frankenstein, hideously coiffed, with ghostly white faces and torn white taffeta petticoats. They stalked, then eventually submitted to a dozen equally pallid suitors, who sat terrified together against a wall, then took aim in their own attacks. This battle of the sexes surrounded a couple that was briefly hoisted onto each other like mechanical dolls, but (like the predecessor “Les Noces”) without a trace of humor.
It wasn’t the stripping of the Russianness in Celis’s “Noces” that distanced this reworking from the original version by Bronislava Nijinska. It was the impreciseness of the central players in the drama, the two choruses that did not live up to the legacy. Movements that should have been parallel were ragged; lines of bodies choreographed in grids were not straight.
Despite the unevenness, the crowd loved these tales of love, and rewarded them with cheers, ovations, and the hum of excitement that has come to characterize what is best about Fall for Dance. The festival’s slant toward crowd-pleasing works and tours-de-force is its true homage to Diaghilev.
copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman
Natalia Hills and Gabriel Misse in "Romper el Piso," photo by Carlos Furman
