Photo: JUSTIN LIN

Rooted
Dzul Dance

Performed at The Merce Cunningham Studio
Reviewed on 3/26/05
by R. Pikser

The first part of a choreographer's job is to find something he or she wants to communicate. Other tasks follow: to find appropriate music, costumes, and lighting to support that communication; to find movements that will serve the goal; and finally, to give them a structure. In Rooted>, an evening of work presented in March, Javier Dzul has succeeded to varying degrees in all these tasks. His weakest skill at present, however, is finding the movement itself. His vocabulary (although at least eschewing po-mo floppiness) is limited to battements, some leaps, some rib isolations, and the waving arms that usually indicate a lack of clarity in intention.

Mr. Dzul’s work does show developing complexity, from his 1997 An Encounter with Picasso to this year’s From a Wounded Heart. The former piece recalls Graham’s mythic style, without actually finding the wellsprings of movement that continue to make Graham relevant. Mr. Dzul’s latest piece shows an increasing use of space and choreographic counterpoint, with shapes and movements traveling from one side of the stage to another, though the vocabulary continues to be extremely limited and not specific to what he is trying to say. From a movement perspective, the opening section of the evening’s opening piece, Itzkanil, was the most satisfying. Here, Mr. Dzul’s vocabulary was perfect for the strange half-animal, half-spirit that he portrayed with electrifying concentration. Unfortunately that concentration did not extend to his choreography for Robin Taylor, nor was she able to find her own interpretation for her movements.

The costume design by Mr. Dzul was excellent; that by Marion Talan was less attractive and less helpful to the movement. Throughout the evening, the music, both live and taped, and by various composers, was excellent. While it did not overshadow the movement, Mr. Dzul tended to lean on it, rather than using it to supplement and highlight his own ideas.

Mr. Dzul has some definite ideas about what he wants to say, a rarity these days. He also has many good instincts. But he has not yet managed to plumb his own depths as successfully as he can recognize depth in music or depth of subject.

(Updated on 6/10/05)

Photo: Rosalie O'Connor

Peter Boal & Company


Performed at:
Reviewed on 3/19/05
by R. Pikser

Peter Boal is reputed to have a generous spirit. That reputation was borne out in the programming of this concentrated evening of works by five different choreographers, three of whom are relatively new to the field, including three world premieres. Mr. Boal's generosity also reached back to modern and theater choreographer Daniel Nagrin, whose short, polished solo about the death of a small-time hoodlum was danced with whiplike viciousness by Sean Suozzi. The very 1940s characterization of the hoodlum gave the piece a period feel, but its structure was tight and flawless. Mr. Boal's concerned, attentive, and gentle partnering of Wendy Whelan in Edwaard Liang's Distant Cries again gave a feeling of generosity, while his clean performance of Wendy Perron's Finding showed the beauty the well-trained body brings to any movement. Mr. Boal did not dance in the second half of the program, leaving Ms. Whelan's liquid hardness to deal with choreographer Shen Wei's strange, almost non-human solo Body Study III.

The final piece of the evening, choreographed by Victor Quijada, currently with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, was the only one of the new pieces to explore more than one element of dance. Mr. Nagrin's piece, still modern in its conception, showed the dancer and movement from different angles, seeming at times to stand him on his head, or to jump from one scene into the next; but the younger Mr. Quijada, working with several dancers, seemed to go even further with some of his predecessor's ideas. His three-man Soft Watching the First Implosion, with more than usually excellent lighting by David Moodey (who also lit the rest of the evening), was also filmic, although lacking the character-driven drama of the Nagrin solo. At one moment, the piece played with perspective and timing, using sudden blackouts to change views of the same movements; in other sections the dancers related to each other. Soft Watching expanded the vocabulary by successfully blending elements of ballet and street dance and using both to its own purposes. And its use of rhythm, both in the syncopation of the movement and in the broken-seeming structure of the piece as a whole, was mind-expanding. Mr. Quijada is someone to watch. As Mr. Boal leaves the New York City Ballet to take on the directorship of Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet, one gladly presumes his curious mind and open spirit will bring not only Mr. Quijada's works with him, but works by more young choreographers who need excellent dancers to show their work to best advantage.

(Updated on 6/22/05)

Photo: Joseph Khakshouri

Glow
Nayikas Dance Theater
Performed at The Rubin Museum of Art
Reviewed on 3/17/05
by Celeste Sunderland

The Rubin Museum in New York not only presents treasures from South Asia in its sumptuous galleries, but one week last March, the Nayikas Dance Theater Company filled the museum’s stage with the sounds, visuals, and motions of India.

Five dancers in opulent costumes stepped in strong, intricate rhythmic patterns. The bells on their ankle-bracelets crashed, joining the Indian beats emitted through the speakers. Slowly they manipulated their bodies into statuesque poses, jingling their hip sashes and necklaces as they moved.

Much of Glow showcased Odissi, an ancient dance form from southern India. But choreographer Myna Mukherjee also often broke from traditional constraints by incorporating elements of modern and yoga. As electronic music blasted, three dancers moved gracefully with large, swelling movements, manipulating their arms and legs into various poses. Their expressionless faces frequently made eye contact with each other, creating a tense energy. During another segment, two dancers rolled their shoulders seductively and flashed their eyes coyly. Their arms, wrists undulating, resembled serpents poised to entice.

Glow also incorporated video. In one section, projected footage from a comic book about the life of an Indian goddess added delicious pop appeal to the evening’s ancient themes. Another piece featured gorgeous black-and-white scenes from old Bollywood films of women adoring themselves. They sat at their vanities, applying makeup and bindis, draping silk saris and golden jewels over their bodies.

A narrative about the goddess Kali—saber in one hand, her bloodthirsty tongue rolling from her mouth—made up a third video segment. “Stripped of all pretenses, her body bare, she dances, only clothed in space and sky,” said the narrator. The video then described Kali’s nine sisters, as three dancers emerged, waving stalks of burning incense, to call up the spirit of Kali and her sisters through movements and facial expressions. Here Mukherjee’s powerful choreography featured brisk motions, arching arms, twirls, and lifted legs.

Glow’s visual feast of vibrant color and flowing motion had a relaxing effect, although the group dancing could have been tighter. Each dancer showed most strength on an individual level, with wonderful ability to carry out formal techniques such as isolating the torso, or moving the entire body as a single entity, while constantly changing rhythms. This is dancing that pulsates with inherent beauty.

(Updated on 6/9/05)

Photo by: Charles Martin

Yin Mei

The River

Performed at Dance Theater Workshop
Reviewed on on 03/09/05
by Celeste Sunderland

When Chinese dancer and choreographer Yin Mei was growing up, communism was growing with her. As a schoolgirl, this passionate little being, whose diary, transmitted orally over the speakers last March at DTW, revealed a glimpse into her revolutionary solidarity, witnessed the execution of a counterrevolutionary. Nomad: The River, Yin Mei’s historical and autobiographical work for three female and one male dancer, traces the path of a woman who, profoundly influenced by her generation, embarks on a quest for understanding through the mysteries of the great and powerful Yangtze and Ganges Rivers.

Set and sound designer Christopher Salter hung 27 fiberglass panels from three rods that ran the width of the stage. Their mysterious translucence created a backdrop as well as a seemingly enchanted forest. Images of slender branches were projected onto the panels as the dancers rolled and undulated among them. Echoing, electronic tones lulled them from their slumber as cicadas chirped their nighttime chorus.

Throughout the piece, the choreography touched upon several ritualistic types of scenes. At one point Pedro Osorio, the sole male dancer, made an offering of flowers to Mei. Then, interrupting the romance, he slammed the bouquet against the metal gong she held, while the other two dancers rolled wistfully about on either side of the stage, playing with roses in their toes. Symbolic moments like these whispered of the ancient, creating slight confusion, as well as profound beauty, by lingering just beyond the grasp of the obvious.

The work crossed a very personal boundary when Osorio painted the dancers’ legs red. This human connection incited heightened emotion and passion in the dancing. Mei’s movements resembled sign language with their theatrical complexity. As she danced, she seemed to cull deeply buried emotions that she desperately wanted to communicate.

Unfortunately a technical error occurred at a pivotal moment. As the four dancers, caught up in the trance of electronic music, moved simultaneously in a meditative sequence of willowy movements, the music stopped. The dancers continued the choreography, but the effect was lost, as was a stream of light that was supposed to glow through the panels to create the illusion of a river. Despite this glitch, the work still flowed with texture. In one especially moving scene, the dancers emerged awkwardly from behind the panels wearing white masks while the speakers emitted solemn chanting over a slamming industrial beat. A dusty aroma filled the space as they tossed green tea into the air.

(Updated on 4/18/05)

Polly Motley
Dancing the Numbers

Performed at: Danspace Project, St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
Reviewed on 2/5/05
by R. Pikser

Polly Motley is, within her chosen vocabulary, a beautifully lyrical dancer. Her moments of stillness are truly suspended in both time and space. When she initiates a movement in some part of her body, you can trace its path as it flows through all other parts. Her small hand movements are delicate gems of awareness. In Dancing the Numbers Motley has chosen as her organizational principle the beginning of the Fibonacci series: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 13, where she stops, although the series continues infinitely. This relationship, which governs the whorls of a snail's shell or the placement of the seeds of a sunflower, governs the timing, the floor pattern, and the repetitiveness of the work.

The Fibonacci series has provided Motley with a formal structure. What Fibonacci has not provided is dynamic variation or communicative need. That the audience is privy to the structure does not add to the piece, except in the absence of something else, and the meditative forty-minute evening is more a study than a finished work. The sound score, by Paul Geluso, comprised of sounds from bird chirps to automobiles zooming by on a freeway, helped keep the attention, but to what purpose was unclear.

Motley has allowed the improvisationally-based movement to limit her. With some more rigorous choreography, she might transcend herself. That would be something really worth seeing.

(Updated on 6/22/05)