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Fall for Dance: From China to Hawaii

“The Cold Dagger,” “Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux.” ”The New 45.” “Single Room.” “Kahikilani”
Beijingdance/LDTX; Houston Ballet; Richard Siegal/The Bakery; Fang-Yi Sheu; The Gentlemen of Hälau Nä Kamalei
City Center
New York, NY
September 23, 2008

by Susan Reiter
copyright © 2008 Susan Reiter

There's nothing quite as exhilarating as being part of an audience as it is taken by surprise and utterly delighted. That happened midway through this brief but enriching fourth Fall For Dance program, when Richard Siegal's juicy, rambunctious "The New 45" was danced with fantastic abandon and engaging directness by Ayman Harper and Mario Zambrano. Some might have arrived at City Center eager to check out Houston Ballet performing Balanchine, or for an all-too-rare glimpse of the divine Fang-Yi Sheu, but they responded to Siegal's work, deservedly, with the type of spontaneous enthusiasm that cannot be faked.

Fall for Dance: Invigorating Sampler from Afar

“Les Chambres des Jacques,” “Rush,” “Odissi:PRAVAHA,” “Harmonica Breakdown,” “Uprising”
[bjm_danse] Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal/Oregon Ballet Theatre/Madhavi Mudgai/Sheron Wray/Hofesh Shechter Company
City Center
New York, NY
September 20, 2008

by Susan Reiter
copyright 2008 Susan Reiter

The Fall for Dance Festival really hit its stride with this third program, as wide-ranging a sampler as one could devise -- and with not a single New York-based company among the five. In fact, only one -- Oregon Ballet Theatre -- was American, with the others hailing from Canada, India and England. The three works seen in excerpted form were intriguing enough that one wished to put them in a fuller context, and the two that were performed complete -- one solo and one duet -- were powerful and distinctive.

Nutrition – Fall for Dance Program 5

“Pithoprakta,” “Love,” “Lombard Play Piazzolla – The Dance Concert,” “The Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us,” “From Before”
The Suzanne Farrell Ballet/Talia Paz/The Lombard Twins/
Kate Weare Company/Garth Fagan Dance
City Center
New York, NY
September 25, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

As I’ve said before, Fall for Dance is a buffet, ten straight days of it.  I saw all six programs, not the way the average person would experience the festival.  It’s for the best; going back to the buffet for six trips can give one mild indigestion, sometimes from gluttony, but also paradoxically malnutrition.  As much as the buffet changed, the basic formula stayed the same, and a buffet isn’t a balanced meal.

Program 5 started with The Susan Farrell Ballet in “Pithoprakta,” a work Balanchine made in 1968 with a companion work “Metasteis.” Her company reconstructed only “Pithoprakta” last year.  This is not a revival; all Farrell had to go on was a low quality rehearsal tape with the male lead, Arthur Mitchell, missing.  Neither Farrell nor Mitchell really remembered what he danced; it has been reimagined by her.

Falling for Dance Again

Fall for Dance
“Sweet Fields,” “In the Night,” “Cor Perdut,” “Esplanade”
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
Compania Nacional de Danza
Paul Taylor Dance Company
City Center, New York
September 26, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

The final program of City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival turned out to be a gala of sorts. It opened with the presentation of the 2008 Jerome Robbins Awards, with $100,000 stipends, to Twyla Tharp and the San Francisco Ballet. Tharp and SFB’s Helgi Tomasson accepted graciously in person. Then we saw some of their award-winning best work – Tharp’s “Sweet Fields” performed by the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, and six dancers from San Francisco Ballet performing Robbins’ “In the Night.”

“Sweet Fields” – as in heaven – was an ideal vehicle for the young, athletic, and nearly angelic Santa Fe dancers. They appear in flowing white costumes, moving in various states of ecstasy, from serene to possessed, to 19th century hymns from the Sacred Harp and Shaker traditions. Tharp here shows why she rates a Robbins award – like him, she understands the spiritual source of America’s energy supply.

Fall For Dance - Program 2

“Sounddance,” “Awassa Astrige/Ostrich,” “The Leaves Are Fading, “Lone Epic,” “Tap Into Peace”
Merce Cunningham Dance Company/ Dayton Contemporary Dance Company/ American Ballet Theater/ Louise Lecavalier/ Ayodele Casel, Sarah Savelli & Dancers
New York City Center
New York, NY
September 19, 2008

by Lisa Rinehart
© 2008 by Lisa Rinehart

Let's keep it short and sweet, shall we, since that's the theme of New York City Center's "Fall for Dance" series. This ten day series of bundled excerpts at $10 a pop grows more popular every year as dance enthusiasts flock to see 28 companies (this year's total) in new and revived works by choreographers known and obscure. It’s easy to get frustrated with the choreographic nibbles offered at “Fall for Dance” so making these line-ups work is a challenge. Program 3, however, is a well-balanced plate of tapas ranging from the sophisticated to the straight-up funny.

Fertile Soil, Fragile Structures

"Drift“
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
Millennium Stage North
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
September 18, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Cassie Meador is the third of three DC choreographers commissioned this year to make something new by the Kennedy Center. I missed the premiers of the other two, Karen Reedy and Vincent Thomas, earlier in the month. Meador’s work seems very young – full of energy and ideas, often shifting gears and still in search of a form. She’s been with the Dance Exchange for six years and has learned many of Lerman’s techniques for weaving communal tapestries on a global scale. “Drift”, however, is about something more intimate.

Key to the Kiosk

“Kiosk”
Arica Performance Company
Japan Society, New York
September 19, 2008

by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

“What do you do?” is the classic New York question, and now I know the follow-up, the corollary that makes it worthwhile.  What do you do, and what do you do with it?   What do you do to make bartending, bus driving, teaching, or toll-collecting a work of art;  how do you take time and space and craft them into dramatic moments and sequences, rises and falls, surges and lapses, intermissions and grand finales?  In other words, how do you turn the tedium of labor into the joy of creation?  (The humbler your job, the more apt the question.)  “Kiosk” is a lesson in how it’s done, and a warning of the woes of our post-industrial age. 

Cheap at the Price – Fall for Dance Program 1

“Map,” “Chui Chai,” “Fire,” “Soldiers’ Mass”
Shen Wei Dance Arts/Pinchet Klunchun Dance Company/
Keigwin + Company/National Ballet of Canada
City Center
New York, NY
September 17, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

The fifth season of the Fall for Dance festival at City Center came close to selling out the same day tickets went on sale.  The theater was packed on opening night; there was happy anticipatory chaos out front and the second balcony was in use – a rarity for this house. Management keeps getting better at publicizing the festival and it appears to be reaching a wider audience. Wanting to see all the programs as well as do my part for audience development, I braved the line the day tickets went on sale to buy extra tickets for myself and as many friends who were not “dance people” as I could finagle into coming. Standing in line were not only dancers and ex-dancers, but also college teachers, folks from the neighborhood, dads from Brooklyn taking their daughters out . . . it made the wait far more palatable. 

Philadelphia Fringe

„Factor T“
Dada von Bzdueloew Theatre
Christ Church Neighborhood House
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 6, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

For those living between NYC and DC, Philadelphia’s Live Arts Festival or “Fringe” offers a convenient way to keep up with performance dance and conceptual dance from Europe. It is feasible, especially on weekends, to attend 3 or 4 Fringe events in a single day and still catch a bit of home sleep that night. If you want to overnight in Philadelphia without burdening friends, several hotels offer a festival rate that’s not unreasonable. I’d planned to take in 3 things on Saturday and join a post-performance supper party, but hadn’t reckoned with Hurricane Hanna’s aftermaths. The rain that morning was light and had just about stopped at 1 PM, starting time for Willi Dorner’s city tour happening – “Bodies in Urban Spaces”. At the starting place, Love Park, a Fringe ranger informed those who were waiting that there would be no performance. More rain was expected. I had wanted to see how Dorner - a Viennese modern dance choreographer known for his terse phrases and dry humor – would highlight Philadelphia’s sights. Instead, I set out earlier than planned for the second event, an indoor one - Dorner and Lisa Rastl’s photo exhibit “Feet of Contemporary Choreographers” at Painted Bride Art Center. A downpour intervened and lasted hours. I did get to the Polish performance, “Factor T”, and the supper.

The Music Has It

“In Fugue” and “Entrelazo”
Mark Foehringer Dance Project/SF
Jewish Community Center
San Francisco, CA
September 5, 2008

by Rita Felciano
copyright©by Rita Felciano

Right off the top Mark Foehringer’s most recent works,
“In Fugue” (2007) and the world premiere of “Entrelazo,” had two things going for them. The music for both pieces intrigued more than the choreography, and Foehringer one more time featured expressive male dancing like few others of his Bay Area colleagues do. But again and again, the scores exerted a stronger pull than Foehringer’s response to them. He skillfully deployed excellent dancers—drawn primarily from local ballet companies and ODC-- but the choreography rarely developed the kind of thrust that brings with it both surprise and inevitability.