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La MaMa in Mid-Life

An Evening of Dance Works
Choreography by Christopher Caines, Ping Chong, and Muna Tseng
La MaMa e.t.c., New York
May 29, 2008
By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

For 46 years now, La MaMa experimental theater company has been the place to go to see something new and completely unexpected. By now, it’s only natural that this mama is showing signs of middle age; so the final program of the month-long La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival mixed something new with something old, and even something old-fashioned. The old was best – a revival of Muna Tseng’s “Water Water,” with most of the original cast returning, 24 years after its New York premiere. “Water Water” is a subtle spoof of Asian formalism and sexism, with a cast of six Asian women. In 1984 it must have looked revolutionary; now, in retrospect, it looks prophetic.

Male Divas, Female Bonding

La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival 2008
“Dancing Divas”
choreography by Barbara Mahler, Jodi Melnick, Sara Rudner, Vicky Shick, Sally Silvers, Pam Tanowitz
“Male Bonding”
choreography by John Scott, John Jasperse, Miguel Gutierrez
La MaMa e.t.c., New York
May 24, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

La MaMa e.t.c. put on a doubleheader of mostly new works and works-in–progress at their dance festival Saturday night, but the marquee titles may have been reversed. “Male Bonding” gave us three pieces with dancers mostly obsessing about themselves. On the other hand, six women were billed as the “Dancing Divas,” but their work mostly explored relationships. The best was a double duet by Pam Tanowitz that explored both the mechanics and the psychology of partnering.

Deconstruction Project

Poom2
“A Page Out of Order M to M”
Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks
Japan Society, New York
May 17, 2008

by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

The state of Manipur in India and the nation of Macedonia in the Balkans have little or no contact with each other and little or no culture in common, but they share a common bond: they’ve been through the School of Hard Knocks. Fought over, carved up, traded back and forth and chronically exploited and trashed by bigger, stronger neighbors, these are “submerged, near-invisible lands,” surviving only because of their capacity to absorb punishment, and their perverse sense of their own existence. As such they are emblems of our own lives, aren’t they? That’s what Yoshiko Chuma seems to imply in the latest “Page Out of Order” in her series of multi-media theater explorations, this one subtitled “M to M” – Macedonia to Manipur. It’s a trip.

Cries and Whispers

World Tour
“Bugaku,” “An American in Paris,” Valse Triste,” “The Chairman Dances,” “Russian Seasons”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater, New York,
Saturday evening, May 10, 2008

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

Wendy Whelan’s dancing has drawn many adjectives in her long and varied career; intense, dramatic, and weird are high among them, but I don’t recall her being described as erotic. That now goes on the list, after her performance with Albert Evans in Balanchine’s “Bugaku.” Making her debut in the sexually charged role originated by Allegra Kent, a role that’s been reduced to ho-hum pornography by others in recent years, Whelan restored some of the luster of a unique Balanchine masterpiece. She did it not by imitating anyone, but with her own weird assets – articulate joints, a mysterious gaze, an electric sense of timing, detached formalism and hidden fire.

Two Guys from New York

Bernstein Collaborations
“Fancy Free,” “Dybbuk,” and “West Side Story Suite”

New York City Ballet
New York State Theater, New York
May 4, 2008

by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

Sailors on leave were ubiquitous on the west side of Manhattan during World War Two, when “Fancy Free” had its premiere in 1944. Now they arrive en masse just once a year for Fleet Week, but the boys in white bell-bottoms and Dixie-cup hats are as welcome, as endearing, and as clueless as ever. These storm-tossed and battle-hardened youths don’t know where they are, or even who they are, and have no idea what to do in New York. So naturally they drift a few blocks from the docks to the cheap, smelly bars of Eighth Avenue, where they try their awkward bravado on random girls passing by, and are shielded from harm by the good will of a grateful nation, and the God who looks out for drunks.

Flightless "Sail"

Jeremy Nelson
“Sail” and “Mean Piece”
Danspace Project
St. Marks In-the-Bowery
New York, NY
March 14, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips 

I’ve never been to New Zealand, but it sounds like a cool place to be: windswept islands at the end of the earth, lightly inhabited by traditional Maori tribes and British and Scottish expatriates, songbirds, flightless birds, and sheep.   Jeremy Nelson’s new piece “Sail” is inspired by impressions of his childhood in New Zealand, and it’s full of interesting elements, combined in clever ways.  But it didn’t quite translate into an inspiring experience for non-Kiwis.   

Delivery at DTW

“Center of Sleep”
Yanira Castro + Company
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
February 27, 2008
By Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

Choreographer Yanira Castro had to sit out the premiere of her new work at Dance Theater Workshop, because she'd just had a baby.  As it turns out this is not incidental information:  “Center of Sleep” is intimately related with what was happening to her over the last nine months, the processes of gestation and development, an acting-out of the mystery of human growth.  For this she turned the Bessie Schonberg Theater  into a kind of super-womb, lined with mirrors, rooms and platforms, and invited the audience to follow her performers around.  It was a circuit of surprises, with the best saved for last. 

Rococo Farewell

Inspirations
Divertimento from "Le Baiser de la Fee," "The Chairman Dances," "Rococo Variations," "Stars and Stripes"
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
February 19, 2008

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

“Rococo Variations,” Christopher Wheeldon’s last ballet as resident choreographer for New York City Ballet, may be his best. Unlike the “cool, sexy” material he has cooked up for his own new company Morphoses, this is warm and romantic – an atmosphere where his flowing combinations and inventive partnering can turn into something truly moving. It does so here because of two inspired choices – a Tchaikovsky piece for cello and orchestra, and a cast that pairs two of NYCB’s rising female stars with two young men from the corps de ballet, who more than rise to the occasion.

Fathers and Sons

“Traditions”:
“Square Dance,” “Prodigal Son,” “The Four Seasons”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
January 27, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

Daniel Ulbricht is a spectacular dancer, a world-class leaper and spinner newly promoted to principal after six years in New York City Ballet. The title role in Balanchine’s “Prodigal Son” seems one he was destined to dance, and he burst out of the tent like a wild horse in his debut Sunday, as if determined to make his mark in a fabled role. He leaped so high in the opening scene – the grand pas de chats with clenched fists made famous by Edward Villella -- that some in the audience broke into applause. Since this is a character, not a bravura role, the plaudits seemed slightly out of place, and might have served as a warning that in this story, technique and talent need to be the servants and not the master.

Japan and Beyond

Contemporary Dance Showcase
Phase 2: Japan + East Asia
Kingyo, UBIN Dance, Sun-Shier Dance Theatre, Makotocluv, Yun Myung Fee
Japan Society, New York
January 12, 2008

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

If there was a theme to Japan Society’s 11th annual Contemporary Dance Workshop, it might have been the insane influence of western civilization in Japan and East Asia. The five-company program was dominated by robotic, spastic movements that seemed to be driven not by the person but by the “machine” outside. The takes on this ranged from the wildly desperate – an extended solo meltdown by Yun Myung Fee – to the wildly comic, in the best piece of the night by the Japanese group Makotocluv.