An American Classic: Limon Dance Company
The Limon Dance Company performed works from its priceless repertory at the Joyce Theater, November 13 to 25. The season was too short. The works are worth seeing again and again.
Jose Limon (1908-1972), born in Culiacan, Mexico, was one of the two male modern dance pioneers (Charles Weidman was the other). He was a thoughtful man of great humanity, dignity, passionate beliefs and enormous talent. Brought by his parents to the United States at the age of seven, he studied painting, until he saw a performance by the Humphrey/Weidman Company. He joined their school and company and the rest is dance history. Limon's dramatic performing was so powerful that Martha Graham once asked him to join her company. He refused, and went on to choreograph his own enduring works and memorable roles. Critic John Martin, a long-time advocate of modern dance, said: "There is no other male dancer within even comparing distance of him."
In 1946, Limon established his company with Doris Humphrey (1895-1958) as co-founder and artistic director. During the 40s and 50s, all the modern dance pioneers were developing their own vocabulary, expanding their own techniques and increasing their repertory, while critics puzzled over what it all meant.
So where is it all now-the company and his works? Strong and healthy. Carla Maxwell, who was a principal Limon dancer for 36 years, became artistic director of the company in 1978. From the original repertory of 16 dances, she has maintained the works and overseen the growth of the repertory to 50 by 32 choreographers including new works this year by jazz choreographer, Billy Siegenfeld, Donald McKayle, Murray Louis and a superb pas de deux by Doug Varone, danced by him and the company's principal dancer, Nina Watt. Varone's "Short Story" is pure Strindberg, a dance by two mature people in conflict, yet tied together by time, experiences and commitment. It was performed to a potboiler, Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# minor," but one hardly noticed. It was so suitable.
On the season's program were Limon7s timeless, "There is a Time," Haim's "An Anatomy of Intent," McKayle's "Cross Roads," Siegenfeld's "If Winter," Humphrey's reconstructed 1949 charming work, "Invention," and two by Murray Louis, "Isle," (2001) and is 1978 "Figura," created in his sometimes quirky, often funny, but always inventive style. Two additional works were, German choreographer Suzanne Linke's 1976 "Transfiguration," and Eleanor King's excerpts from her 1940-1941 "Roads to Hell."
Saving the best for last, was the performing of Limon's moving "There is a Time" (1956) based upon text from Chapter 3, Ecclesiastes and his 1949 masterwork, "The Moor's Pavane," somewhat based upon Shakespeare's tragic story. If one recalls the performance or videotape of the earlier cast - Limon, Betty Jones, Ruth Currier and later Pauline Koner and Lucas Hoving - the current cast is uninteresting. Limon was a large man, imposing; Hoving, as Iago, was slender and sly; the two women were intense and victims of a treacherous plot. Ah well. Beneath it all, however, lies Limon's powerful spirituality and understanding of human emotions in it best and worst setting and his craft of presenting it all in deceptively simple pattern movements. A masterwork is a masterwork no matter when you play it.
The company includes, Raphael Boumaila, Kimiye Corwin, Ryoko Kudo, Roxane D'Orleans Juste, Natalie Desch, Kristen Foote, Mary Ford, Adam Hougland, Amber Merkens, Dante Puleio, Robert Regala, Jonathan Riedel and Francisco Ruvalcaba and Nina Watt. The season's guest artists included Mark Haim, Billy Siegenfeld, Risa Steinberg and Doug Varone. •