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CorbinDances

CorbinDances
“Romantic Conversions,” “Springtide Thereafter,” “Reach,” “Adele’s Skirt (Tsaritsas)”
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
July 15, 2009

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel

Patrick Corbin had two different dancing careers, starting with ballet in Washington D.C. and then the Joffrey Ballet, finally moving on to a long, rich career with Paul Taylor.  You can see echoes of both in his company’s work

CorbinDances has been around since 2006 and presented four pieces as part of the SummerDANZ Festival sponsored by Gotham Arts Exchange. Like his last boss, Corbin has an eye for approachable programming.

Trend 2

International Contemporary Dance Conference & Performance Festival #16
Bytom, Poland
28 June - 11 July 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

There were postmodern dance pieces I liked thoroughly! (This is a continuation. Please start your reading at part 1 of Trend below). Poland's Lublin Dance Theater impressed with a duet. Both figures were male and much of their world was the color white. They also wore white, one man a white nightshirt and the other tight white trousers. Often they engaged one another in movement but each also seemed to engage with himself. Both the separate and joint action gave the impression that declarations were being made. Muscular effort and contortions of limbs, neck and torso such as those made by Michelangelo's models lent  the proceedings an epic dimension yet there was, too, an undertone of anxiety. The men were fine physical specimens, which became fully apparent when they stripped to white diaper briefs. As they did diverse things with and to each other one wondered whether they were patient and nurse, lovers, roommates, all of the foregoing or none of the above. What mattered? That movement themes grew, modulated and developed. That there was consistency as well as invention. That a dynamic logic became established. And that there was counterpoint between the men's personal feelings and a sense of saga. The duration of this duet - "NN. Waclawowi Nizynskiemu" by Ryszard Kalinowski - was 50 minutes but it did not seem long. The choreographer and Wojciech Kapron  performed.

All-male dances were high in number this year and their sexual connotations were not ignored.  

Trend

International Contemporary Dance Conference & Performance Festival #16
Bytom, Poland
28 June - 11 July 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

Practices which choreographers of contemporary dance have in common were apparent in this summer's 34 scheduled presentations from 15 countries and in the half dozen add-ons. I'm calling my list of their preferences the 2009 trend. Topmost was the use of non-dance or sub-dance motion, which is not new. Hiding skill, avoiding polish and choosing the street look over that of the studio became articles of faith for postmodern dancers some years ago. What I hadn't noticed before was the importance of mood swings. Action and characterization may be toyed with, but often these classic Aristotelian components aren't stuck to and fail to make story sense. Instead, feelings have become the main focus - as in Jacek Luminski's "Panopticon or/and a Parable of the Poppy". This is a violent piece at first glance, seemingly about prisoners being abused by their guards. As it continues, though, who is captive and who captor becomes less clear. Nor does all the activity continue to relate to punishment. More and more the Silesian Dance Theater cast of 5 men and 2 women modulate away from the choreography's initial brutality to states that include brooding determination and near ecstasy.

We Two Form a Multitude

"Winter Variations", "Silent Ballet"

Emanuel Gat Dance

Rose Theater

New York, NY

July 14, 2009

By Martha Sherman

Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

Sans music, yes; silent, no. Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat makes dance that has deep musical sensibility with or without a soundtrack. The New York premiere of “Winter Variations” for the Lincoln Center Festival  began with a score that was less music than sound wallpaper. In a long segment danced to an industrial hum segueing into the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”, two dancers, Gat and Roy Assaf, introduced themselves, individuals sharing a hauntingly lit space as if each were alone. Gat’s long powerful arms danced in a whiplike movement encircling and reversing around his body. The two dancers combined undulating movement with sharpness, and incorporated every part of their strikingly beautiful bodies. Heads, necks, backs, the low haunches of their squatting thighs and calves joined arms, legs, torsos, and feet in a corporeal celebration.

A Spectacle of Gluttony

Gluck´s “Orpheus and Eurydice”
performed as a collaboration between the Stuttgart State Opera and the Stuttgart Ballet
Stuttgart Opera-House
Stuttgart, Germany
June 27, 3009

by Horst Koegler
copyright@2009 by Horst Koegler

Having attended about two dozen different productions of Gluck´s opera “Orpheus and Eurydice” in half a century, I remember most of them as crashing bores (including Balanchine´s Hamburg staging of 1963). Nor am I sure, from reading some notices and looking at the pictures, that I would like Mark Morris´s  ´provocative, trendy, postmodern and dance-heavy´ (Opera News, August 2007) recent production at the Met. Thus I was not exactly thrilled when Stuttgart announced the opera  s a copr-oduction of the Stuttgart State Opera and the Stuttgart Ballet, directed and choreographed by Christian Spuck, one of the two resident choreographers of the company What made the project interesting, though, is that it was advertised as to be given in its French version of “Orphée et Euridice”, which Gluck had specially prepared for Paris in 1774, his original Vienna version of “Orfeo et Euridice” as `azione teatrale per musica´ of 1762 blown up to “Orphée et Euridice” dimensions. It thus changed into a ´tragédie-opéra en trois actes´ with many dance additions concoctet for the special occasion to pamper Parisian audiences. While most productions, even when tackled by choreographers, are based on the original Vienna version with  dances borrowed from the French adaptation, Stuttgart promised us the complete the French work, keeping its promise by offering us a performance which lasted almost three hours instead of the ninety minutes of the original Vienna ´azione teatrale´. After which certainly nobody could complain of  having been bored, with the dancers and choristers mixing with the soloists, so that there happens a lot of activity even in the scenes which are normally staged as statuary rituals.

Travails With Shen Wei

"Re - ( I,II,III)"

Shen Wei Dance Arts

Alice Tully Hall

New York, NY

July 9, 2009

by Lisa Rinehart

copyright © 2009 by Lisa Rinehart

Shen Wei is on the move in more ways than one. Born in Hunan, China, he studied Chinese Opera, relocated to New York in 1995, made a big splash at the American Dance Festival that same year and has been touring the world ever since. So it's not surprising his Lincoln Center Festival premier,  "Re - ( I,II,III )," is a travelog triptych inspired by journeys to Tibet, China and Cambodia. But it's an artistic trek as well, as the independent pieces, created between 2006 and 2009, have been shuffled out of chronological order (Part I, Part III , Part II) and trimmed to fit the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall. 

It's a tight squeeze.

Young and Old

"Romeo and Juliet"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
July 9, 2009

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2009 by Mary Cargill

ABT celebrated Frederic Franklin's 95th birthday by giving the audience another chance to see this consummate artist mime the Friar in Kenneth MacMillan's popular "Romeo and Juliet".  His entrance was greeted with warm and sustained applause, which he managed to acknowledge while keeping in character.  He made his every gesture a powerful plea for peace, and his appearance was a highlight of the second act, which can make the ballet seem as if it should be called "Romeo, ou les Harlots".
The young lovers were Cory Stearns and Hee Seo, making their New York debuts.  Both are very young (Stearns is a soloist and Seo in the corps) and very talented dancers.  Youth certainly helps to generate sympathy in the often overwrought and under-choreographed work, and there were many touching moments, especially in the final scene, when the lifeless Juliet is hauled around.  But young performers tend to dance the work, and since much of the choreography is of the "do a step and repeat three times" variety more experienced scenery chewers can act their way out of the many dead spots.

Keigwin + Company

“Natural Selection,” “Love Songs,” “Triptych,” and “Bolero NYC”
Keigwin + Company
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
June 25, 2009

by Kathleen O’Connell
copyright © 2009 by Kathleen O’Connell

Larry Keigwin has wit, theatrical smarts, and an enthusiasm for giving his audience something delicious to watch. The program he served up during his company’s recent run at the Joyce Theater was perfectly suited to an early summer evening: it was as quaffable as a glass of crisp white wine and hook-laden as a set of good pop songs.

The program opened at full throttle with “Natural Selection.” Six dancers in white linen and chiffon slugged it out over mates, tore after one another in a frenzy, and literally climbed the walls. It was an exhilarating ride but not an exhausting one, thanks to Keigwin’s supple musicality: he knew when and how to downshift his dancers into a measured counterpoint against Michael Gordon’s beautiful but relentlessly tense and propulsive “Weather One.” Not that Keigwin shied away from pyrotechnics—at a moment of climax, the quicksilver Ying-Ying Shiau, supported by two men, ran up the backs of a clawing huddle of dancers and raced horizontally along the back wall of the stage—but he detonated them shrewdly. There were arresting leisurely images, too: at one point, the dancers moved across the stage in a continually replicating arc of backbends, crawling through it in turn as if it were an endless tunnel.