danceviewtimes

Rugged Terrain

Diana Szeinblum
“Alaska”
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
February 7, 2008

by Lisa Rinehart © 2008

Diana Szeinblum’s “Alaska” is a searing trek over emotionally scorched earth – not an uncommon journey in the world of dance theater, but one Szeinblum navigates with fearless zeal. This is unsurprising from a veteran of Germany’s Folkwang Tanz Schule with Pina Bausch as Artistic Director, but Szeinblum is disciplined in her explorations. With the help of four extraordinarily committed dancers, Lucas Condro, Noelia Leonzio, Alejandra Ferreyra Ortiz and Pablo Lugones, Szeinblum peers into the body’s caverns of remembered experience and finds a spiky terrain of obsession, anger, and frustration. She calls it “a place we all know but nobody has ever been.” I call it prime real estate for psychotherapists, and thankfully, artists.

We See You

“Foray Forêt,” “If you couldn’t see me,” “I love my robots”
Trisha Brown Dance Company
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008

By Lisa Rinehart © 2008

Given Trisha Brown’s 37-plus years as a preeminent postmodern choreographer, the Joyce program feels a little tepid for the queen of cool abstraction. The dances aren’t boring, and the performances are admirable (the Gala treat of watching Brown improvise in the last piece was especially rewarding), but there is a malaise to the evening that’s hard to identify. Perhaps a jolt of caffeine is the answer. A heightened state of nervous tension might help detect the deep structure that indeed lurks in Brown’s tangled groups and introspective solos, but unaltered one feels the neurological gears grinding to stay alert.

Genius at Work

“Au Revoir Parapluie”
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn, NY
December 4-8, 11-15

By Lisa Rinehart
Copyright © 2007 by Lisa Rinehart

The designation of genius gets tossed around a lot these days, but James Thiérrée -- dancer, acrobat, clown, and actor -- is the genuine article. His physical skill elevates the circus arts well above anything found under a conventional Big Top (or under the not-so-conventional rafters of the Cirque de Soleil). As if that's not enough, his daring directorial hand turns tricks into art. “Au Revoir Parapluie,” is a fevered dream tethered loosely to the Orpheus myth, or perhaps rooted in mans’ eternal quest for love, or maybe an exploration of the sacred and profane – it’s never explicitly clear. The beauty of it is, with Thiérrée’s dextrous touch, the genesis of “Au Revoir Parapluie” is unimportant. It is fantastical, beautiful, and delightfully flawed – kind of like the people one might most want to have dinner with.

Music One / Dance - Less Than One

Chamber Dance Project
“dare to feel”
The Ailey Citigroup Theater
New York, NY
December 6, 2007

By Lisa Rinehart

Copyright 2007 by Lisa Rinehart

Diane Coburn Bruning, Artistic Director of the Chamber Dance Project, has some good ideas. Keeping a dance company small (six to eight dancers) so that musicians can be included in the permanent roster is a good idea. Including engaging musical selections without dance is an equally good idea. Presenting work created mostly by fledgling, in house choreographers may not be the best idea. This is because Bruning’s flagrantly titled “dare to feel” program feels more like an evening of enjoyable music than an engaging dance concert. Even excellent live music cannot compensate for adequate choreography.

Lost at Sea

“Ship in a View”
Pappa Tarahumara
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn, NY
November 28, 2007

By Lisa Rinehart

Copyright 2007 by Lisa Rinehart

Hiroshi Koike, Artistic Director of Pappa Tarahumara and creator of “Ship in a View,” appears to be a member of the “if it’s inscrutable, it must be good” club. Koike’s ninety-five minute reflection on Hitachi City, the provincial industrial town where he grew up in 1960’s Japan, is often beautiful, but heavily laden with suggested psychodrama that verges on the irritating. This is perhaps because Koike makes the fatal mistake of assuming we care as much about his recollections of Hitachi City as he does. Memory is a funny thing. Intensely subjective, it can be mined with great success for clear emotion and experience, but it can also be an artistic quagmire about as interesting as slides of Mom and Dad’s latest trip.

He's Got Game

"feedforward"
David Neumann/ advanced beginner group
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
Oct. 23-27, Oct. 30- Nov. 3

by Lisa Rinehart
copyright 2007 by Lisa Rinehart

David Neumann's "feedforward" is a super smart, sideways look at the high church of American sport, and his crackling wit is the best in the biz. Eleven dancers and four willing trombonists unite in this danced collision between the inner struggle of the athlete, and the flash and trash of televised sports hyperbole. There's plenty of action, comically obtuse text delivered commentator style, and some fine moves for referees of all stripes. Neumann, who admits to being "not really a sports person," compacts the agony and ecstasy of competition into a neat little movement poem about where passions truly burn in American culture.

Pretty Package

"Morphoses," "Vicissitude," "Propeller," "Satie Stud," "Slingerland Pas de Deux," "Mesmerics"
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company
New York City Center
New York, NY
October 21, 2007

By Lisa Rinehart
copyright 2007 by Lisa Rinehart

Christopher Wheeldon is keen on the glossy package, and Program Two of his highly anticipated Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company is no exception. The dancers are gorgeous -- otherworldly specimens borrowed from New York City Ballet, the Royal Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, Ballet Boyz and National Ballet of Canada. The music is choice, ranging from Vivaldi and Schubert to Ligeti and Glass. I Pod-esque graphics portentously announce each piece on a large film screen. Indeed, the offerings in the program's middle section are proceeded by a lushly filmed preview of coming attractions, but more about that later. The lighting is beautiful, the stage design is elegant -- sometimes even breathtaking, as when the curtain rises on eight cello players spanning the back of the stage on a raised platform; their instruments aglow. And Wheeldon's cleverly symmetrical choreography is as inventive and athletic as ever, with the gleam and liquidity of a late Henry Moore. So what's the problem?

Philosophical Dance

"Thin Air"
Donna Uchizono Company
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
Oct 9-13, 2007

by Lisa Rinehart
copyright 2007 by Lisa Rinehart

Ever fearless, Donna Uchizono explores the abstractions of Buddhism and quantum physics in "Thin Air," a heady conceptual piece with just enough dancing to keep it grounded (and, I might add, fascinating). Uchizono likes to immerse herself in something -- a place, an emotional experience, an idea -- then riff on it in unpredictable, and pleasantly inexplicable ways. In "Thin Air," Uchizono concentrates on perceptions of reality by way of juxtaposing the corporeal qualities of dance with the theoretical realities of video. Video images are projected on two dimensional surfaces to create an illusion of sculptural depth, while projections on a dancer's body flatten her curves into a blank canvas. If this sounds potentially boring, it's not. Uchizono has a visual artist's eye for composition, and a performance artist's sensibility for engagement. This means that while much of the piece's movement is minimal and repetitive, it's evocative of Uchizono's current interest -- the parallel between the conundrums of physics, and the Buddhist tenet that the world doesn't exist in the way we see it. Stay with me here -- did I mention there are several ladders, a sheet of opaque plastic manipulated from nimbus cloud to rubbish wad in a series of transformations worthy of art installation status, and a very cool score by Fred Frith? Such is Uchizono's palate; quirky, layered, visually arresting, and intimate as a stranger's diary.

Esperanto for Dummies

"Dense Terrain"
Doug Varone and Dancers
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn, NY
May 16, 2007   

by Lisa Rinehart
copyright © 2007 by Lisa Rinehart

   

      Doug Varone's "Dense Terrain" maps desolate territory. It's an emotionally vacant piece that could dissuade even a hard core New Yorker from renting that grimy studio apartment they've got their eye on — or, at least, send them to the nearest Starbucks for some cozy conversation. This is surprising given that "Dense Terrain" is, like many of Varone's dances, about connecting, or, trying to connect, and what topic is more emotionally fraught? But amidst of pallet of grunge greys, Varone gets bogged down by arcane ideas and technical silliness unrelated to the movement and drains the life from this slick vivisection of psychosis and frustrated relationships.