“FALL FOR DANCE” – PART II
Has “Fall For Dance” fallen into overkill? Each year this particularly exciting series at City Center draws thousands of dance viewers, producing lines outside down the block with cancellation hopefuls crowding the streets. This is an amazing result that began only as an experiment just five years ago by Arlene Shuler, president and CEO of City Center, and has become an energizing opening to the dance season in New York. The mission of this series is to entice would-be dancegoers along with avid lovers of dance, and those who just can’t afford theatre’s big-ticket prices, to see major companies and fledgling groups from here and around the world. The assembling of the programs must be endless work for Shuler and her gang — watching tapes, making the artist’s schedules blend with accessibility to New York, keeping travel expenses down, checking availability of company members—all a head-spinning task for which Schuler should receive a standing ovation.
Viewers can experience all this for $10 an evening — the same price as two chai lattes next door. Although this set up is exciting, I haven’t a clue how one goes about calming down the schedule so that the memory of one brilliant performance has time to register before spilling into another. It isn’t easy to be laughing heartily at a trifle comic dance called “Fire,” then after a short pause, plunge right into a Martinu symphony and the stomping feet of 12 men lunging out at the futility of war. Perhaps less than four or five per program, or two excerpts of the same piece, might be considered.
The final program seemed a good model, opening with Twyla Tharp’s “Sweet Fields,” a work for her own company which premiered in 1996. Additionally, there was ballet from the Aspen Santa Fe Company, and from San Francisco Ballet, as well as a more contemporary mood from Compania Nacional de Danza, and a marathon finish with Paul Taylor’s ‘Esplanade.”
The dancers of Aspen Santa Fe Company featured the tallest men ever seen in one group obviously having fed on the luscious Southwestern air and nourishing food. The smart costumes by Norma Kamali, a mixture of short and long coats flying open revealing sportswear shorts and tops, were the eye catcher as the choreography seemed rather blah.
Tharp is the master of fragmented movement, lots and lots of it, and soon “Sweet Fields” becomes boring, though Jennifer Tipton’s shafts of light highlighted the fit dancers and their elegant costumes beautifully.
Then came the San Francisco Ballet performing Jerome Robbins’s “In The Night.” There is little to be said about his masterful combination of Chopin and choreography other than the company hasn’t a clue of how to perform this ballet. It was given a sophomoric performance saved only by Sofiane Sylve, New York City Ballet’s grave loss now a member of SFB, who outshone every dancer within spitting distance. Sylve is gorgeous, strong and confident. She was the epitome of a Robbins dancer, which made the other two, Yuan Yuan Tan and Lorena Feijoo, pale in comparison. Only Roy Bogas’s performance at the piano leveled with Sylve. Her partner, Tiit Helimets, didn’t have a chance.
“Cor Perdut,” Nacho Duato’s elegant duet as performed by Ana Maria Lopez Huerst and Francisco Lorenzo illustrated how a simple duet can deliver an unforgettable movement memory. Closing out this last program was Paul Taylor’s 1975 “Esplanade” which the dance community reveres as his signature masterpiece and always ignites a rousing reception. For my taste it is a little too close to a test of stamina, and save for one tousled-haired blonde girl whose joy at nearly experiencing a heart attack was contagious, this piece set to Bach just kept on running.
Tucked within the week, there were two special highlights: one a classic modern dance solo by pioneer choreographer Jane Dudley, and an ensemble piece by Hofesh Shechter, a new name among Israeli choreographers to be seen here in New York.
It was the responsibility of Sheron Wray to give Dudley’s “Harmonica Breakdown,” the performance it deserved, and she did just that. The choreography itself is minimal, depending fully on the dancer. Wray mastered the slanted-back, stiff-legged struts, and the hearty pas de chat jumps giving heart and soul to every step she took on the stage. For choreography premiered in 1938 to still hold sway over an audience says something. The standing ovation for Wray and the late Jane Dudley was well deserved.
Hofesh Shechter, a graduate of the Jerusalem Academy for Dance and Music and a former member of the Israeli-based Batsheva Company premiered an excerpt from “Uprising.” The bombastic opening shook the foundations of the theatre previously lulled into repose by Wray’s performance. A bank of lights at the back of the stage sent blinding rays out to the eyes of the audience. Shafts of dry ice smoke filled the stage and, bursting from the beneath the lights and out of the smoke were several young men in scruffy cargo pants and tees, looking tough-minded and full of anger. Oh yes, they could dance and had perfected scurrying across the floor on their backsides propelled by one hand, almost afraid to reveal themselves in an upright position, literally throwing themselves without thought of injury from one part of the stage to the other. Even when standing still, the company projected an unsettling apprehension on the viewer, fear urged along by the percussive score (Shechter’s own) that seemed a chorus of machine guns, bombs and explosions. Choreographers should mercilessly edit, and Shechter was no exception. The excerpt went on too long without changing tone, and the ending seemed a bit ambiguous. The tiny red flag being waved over a pile of bodies was puzzling. However, Shechter has skill and left us eager for another look at his work.