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How to Disappear in Full View

“Zero One”
Yasuko Yokoshi
Danspace Project
New York, NY
September 26, 2015

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2015 by Martha Sherman

Together and apart, zero and one, twin Japanese dancers Manami and Sawami Fukuoka are entirely the same, and entirely different. In Yasuko Yokoshi’s haunting “Zero One,” they waft between traditional Japanese movement and American-inflected contemporary dance, the combination that choreographer Yokoshi has played with throughout her career. Up to now, Yokoshi created work for audiences in her adopted American home; with “Zero One,” she created and offered the work first in Japan. Yokoshi is fluent in both cultures, and revels in the exotic, uncomfortable differences as she challenges her audience to stand witness.

Suwami Fukuoka and Manami Fukuoka in "Zero One." Photo © Ian Douglas.

On the Road

Stars of the Royal Danish Ballet and the New York City Ballet
Palace Theatre Stamford, Connecticut
September 11, 2015

By Carol Pardo
copyright © 2015 by Carol Pardo

Fans of August Bournonville can thank the Stamford Denmark Friendship Weekend, celebrating the 50 years of friendship between Stamford and Denmark, for the presence of dancers (intended to be five each) from the Royal Danish and New York City Ballets. The group danced works from both repertories. The pas de deux from Bournonville's "Flower Festival at Genzano" and the ‘Tarantella" from "Napoli" were no less welcome for being familiar. Balanchine was well represented, as one would expect, but in place of the originally announced work, or works, by Christopher Wheeldon, the program was rounded out by a grab bag of unexpected excerpts. The evening was a lesson in what can happen away from the safeguards of a large institutional company, and a tribute to the professionalism, spunk and gumption of all concerned.

In a Hurry

“Find Yourself Here”
Joanna Kotze
Howard Gilman Performance Space
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York, NY
September 19, 2015

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2015 by Martha Sherman

In her New York premiere of “Find Yourself Here,” Joanna Kotze dressed the stage in movement, color, sound, and film, weaving them into a quick, rich performance. The performers included three dancers (including Kotze), three visual artists, and a live sound designer. The intersections of the dance movement and the ongoing manipulation of visual art suggested a new syllogism: if dancing is movement, and all artists move, than all artists are dancers and, perhaps, all art is dance. In this densely textured piece, she offered a powerful argument.

Photo: Front row: Asuko Goto, Zachary Fabri, Jonathan Allen; Back row: Joanna Kotze, Netta Yerushalmy, and Stuart Singer in "Find Yourself Here." Photo © Stephanie Berger.

Active Torsos and Telltale Arms: Substantive and Sustained

Active Torsos and Telltale Arms: Substantive and Sustained
Fluency in Four: “Picasso Dances”, “Mandala”, “Confluence”, “We choose to go to the  moon”
Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company
Terrace Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
September 19, 2015 

by George Jackson
© 2015 by George Jackson

The dances of Dana Tai Soon Burgess don’t always tell deliberate stories, yet the figures moving across the stage or occupying a space have character. Clearly these bodies show feelings. The people in “Moon” are upbeat and American. They want to communicate with each other as they reach for the stars. The quartet of “Mandala” is introverted and rather unAmerican, each one isolated from the others initially by a halo of light that lingers even after the two women and two men have, so to speak, hatched from their luminous shells. Nominally liberated, their ritual behavior persists. In “Confluence,” ten civilized individuals share condolence, constancy, contemplation and other emotional states. “Picasso Dances” links moods with manners, with style and does so with flair. In all four of Burgess’s works the technical emphasis is on expressive arms and active torsos.

 

Left to right - Kelly Southall, Alvaro Palau, Sarah Halzack.
Courtesy of Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company.

Presence and Absence

“Tree of Codes”
Company Wayne McGregor and Paris Opera Ballet
Park Avenue Armory
New York, NY
September 15, 2015

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2015 by Marianne Adams

The opening scenes of light-speckled people moving on a pitch black stage wasn’t how “Tree of Codes,” the collaborative work featuring Wayne McGregor’s choreography, Olafur Eliasson's visual design, and music by Jamie xx, really began. Instead, the audience was immersed in art from the moment they streamed into the versatile and all-accommodating Park Avenue Armory drill hall, as they walked on either side of the stage and watched refracted silhouettes of themselves projected on a wall in a spectrum of multi-colored presence resembling a Richard Phillips painting.

Photo of a scene from "Tree of Codes." Photo (c) by Stephanie Berger

In the Moment

“To Being”
Jeanine Durning
Chocolate Factory
New York, NY
September 10, 2015

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2015 by Martha Sherman

Jeanine Durning’s “To Being” is a tour de force of energy and improvisation, ninety minutes of endless movement. Using every part of their bodies – not just legs, arms, torsos, but facial muscles, fingers, tongues, hair – the three dancers rarely repeated moves unless to transition into something yet again different. Every surface of the space became a platform: the floor, walls, pipes, windows, furniture, and audio and light equipment. If you multiply the factors, the possibilities are endless – an optimistic metaphor for Being, as well.

 

Jeanine Durning in “To Being.” Photo ©Alex Escalante.

Hansel and Gretel

Jillian Peña’s “Polly Pocket: Expansion Pack”

Solange MacArthur Studio Theater

American Dance Institute

Rockville, Maryland

September 11, 2015

 

by George Jackson

© 2015 by George Jackson

 

The alliterative title of Jillian Peña’s dance piece is a bit of preparation for the choreo- graphy’s repetitive steps, related formations and its structural sequence - a series of similarly timed but emotionally additive passages or scenes. Although “Pack” starts as a duo, becomes a trio and in passing involves as many as thirteen additional dancers, it is as a pairing, a twosome, that it makes its deepest impression. The lad and the lass who – as the audience seats itself - move steadily across the stage space, initially give little inkling of emotion or mood. At first they only seem determined to execute over and over again a simple ballet exercise with emphasis on one of the legs. However, it is the duo’s evolving relationship that will show Peña’s ability to build, to deal with development, to conjure growth. 

 

Photo by Chris Sellers.

Of Style and Fractures

“Ritornare,” “Partita No. 2 in C Minor,” “Lasciatemi Qui Solo,” “The Innermost Part of Something”
Emery LeCrone Dance
Joyce Ballet Festival
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
August 13, 2015

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2015 by Marianne Adams

With over fifty original works in her artistic portfolio in less than a decade as an active choreo- grapher, an evening of Emery LeCrone’s new and recent creations was promising to be at the very least intriguing, if not exciting. The presented ballets indeed were interesting, but more than anything they showed a fractured style of an artist who remains in search of a stylistic identity and voice.

Photo of Emery LeCrone’s “Partita No. 2 in C Minor”. Photo © Rosalie O’Conner