Her first full-length show, In Transit, demonstrates how technical prowess can meet child-like playfulness.  Throughout, dancers play their bodies like musical instruments as they weave intricate formations and portray comedic/disturbing narratives.  They seem to make games of spatial patterns as they move like scattering marbles or jumping checkers.  All is accomplished with outstanding precision and ease.  These ladies are not only capable of great feats of agility, but also of an honest connectedness to each other on stage.

All hailing from SUNY Brockport, company members Erin Johnson, Caroline Nelson, Jessica Reidy, Jenny Showalter, and Lyndsey Vader are a fox-force-five to be reckoned with. Lyndsey Vader’s sense of control, for example, in her solo “Pulse/Apology”, is breathtaking to watch.  What astounding technical abilities she has with her brilliant execution of delicate balances and sharp, quick movements, all while speaking about the sound of her pulse.  My heart stops, like her narrative describes, as she rocks in-and-out of warrior III, flips around to relevé and halts deftly on a dime.  The disturbing last image, a fist under open palm, looks like a heart with splayed aortic valves.  Oh, Treeline, you’ve kindled my inner-child’s imagination!

Immediately following is another energetic solo performance by Jessica Reidy, in “The (un)Natural Art of Dating.”  This rousing jaunt into 1950’s dating has me enchanted from the get-go.  Reidy instructs her audience members on the do’s and don’ts of catching a mate by winking, batting her lashes, and, my favorite, wetting her eyebrows!  She explains the importance of holding a longing gaze as she performs an Exorcist-like head rotation.   Absolutely brilliant!  Her ensemble, Erin Johnson and Caroline Nelson, are perfect.  The threesome dance-on together with the subtle pin-up sex-appeal of the Andrews sisters.  The characterization is complete as nostalgic music plays and house-wife aprons sway, leaving me all giggles and smiles!

“Traveling to Recall A Becoming Of,” choreographed by Jenny Showalter, is another heavy weight champ in this choreographic line up.  Here, the playfulness comes forth in the port de bras, as the girls use various arm gestures to draw lines in space.  They make pulsing gestures with the hands, long reaches of the fingers and very specific movement like poking, jabbing, threading-the-needle, etc.  Here, Showalter carves out space on stage by having the dancers spin in circles and run in diagonals.  She also creates the image of hallways as the dancers run upstage to downstage.  If Jeffy, from Family Circus, were dancing, he’d leave one helluva dotted-line map on stage!

Beautiful spatiality also appears in the opening piece, “Caged Until”, which is, in my opinion, the most outstanding piece of the evening.  This piece represents Treeline’s sense of play perfectly.  Audience members are greeted by the upstage right violin trio, whose diagonal bowing movements seem to inspire the entering dancers whose outstretched arms oppose outstretched legs in an off-balance tilt.  Lovely!  They move in and out of unison, using musical phrasing and quick level changes to create a gorgeous symphony.

Again, Showalter is a master at choreographing spatial arrangements.  I find myself so entranced by her patterns that I fail to notice how suddenly, the dancers are lined up at the stage’s edge with their backs to the audience.  A musical change happens, as the fourth wall is broken, and my experience shifts from spectator to insider.  I become engaged in their game.

Yes, the rest of the piece is like a game.  A series of place-switching follows as they stir up space like in a game of tag.  This leads to another line-up, but this time, a wall line-up for picking teams on a playground. There is a persistent theme of odd-man out, which is perhaps representative of playground politics.  Signature to Showalter’s style, specific hand gestures are repeated in motifs, i.e. a head cradled in a partner’s hands, and, most memorably, the fist meeting the open palm as when rock meets paper in “rock, paper, scissors”.

Favorite moment in the entire show: a dramatic lift where one dancer grabs hold of another’s waist and hoists her own lower body into the spot where bodies should collide, but the third dancer ducks in the nick of time!  Shocking and yet not shocking at the same time because this is so characteristic of how fabulously these femmes dance together.  They dive into near-miss lifts and athletic floor phrases, as fearlessly as a five-year-old does a flying dismount off the swing set!

The playful nature continues well into the second act.  In Jenny Showalter’s solo, “Kilter”, weight-play rules. With the music reminiscent of a French bistro or circus, I imagine Showalter as a mime on a tightrope at times.  There’s an off-balance circular section that conjures the image of a spinning top as it begins to lose steam.  Unfortunately, the rest of the second act begins to lose steam as well.  I notice an overwhelming music trend throughout the evening: strings.  And while nice to start, I find the use of violins and/or cellos (in over half the pieces) to be a bit tiresome by the end, and soon crave something different.

While the music DOES support the playful style—switching drastically from slow and meditative, to speedy and virtuosic—it can be on the verge of melodramatic as is the case with “A Shell of Herself.”  In this text duet, Lyndsey Vader and Caroline Nelson pounce around like ferrets, squeaking out lines barely audible above the intense music, which is building unnecessarily.  I feel as though I am watching a soap opera, one where the actors are clearly reading cue cards.  The text seems superimposed and not at all connected with what the dancers are saying with their bodies.  If we put the whole piece on mute, as Lindsey does to herself in the beginning of the piece (a moment I actually love), then the message would read something like this:  “Look at this.  Look at me.  Look at all this dancing.  See these tricks?  My leaps and kicks?  I’m flexing, pointing, leg-extending, rolling and panting…  all in my undergarment dressings.”  Perhaps this is all intentional, referring back to the title, “Shell of Herself”. The one time Nelson says, “I don’t know what that means,” face-to-face with Vader, I finally believe her.  But then, the movements quickly return to that familiar dance/yoga/Pilates vocabulary, and I’m even more anxious to see something different.

Similar are my feelings on the last piece, “Unearthed Moments.”  Playful still, it begins with counting, like a young girls’ hand-clapping song.  I adore the choice of all heads looking up at the first number, “four.”  This reminds me of the attention-catching word “fore” used in golf.  But the movement is still all so akin to what came before, and at this point, I’m desperately waiting for them to produce something outside the choreographic sandbox:  to get away from codified dance for a moment and explore moving more pedestrian or with more subtlety.  The moment of saving grace happens when Caroline Nelson sits perched atop supporting bodies and does a slow pan across the audience.  Yes!  Slowness.  Stillness.  A moment to reflect and digest.  In fact, I love the subsequent slow motion movement wishing I could see more of it!

Overall, Treeline does a beautiful job of painting the canvas with lots of detail and activity, but one doesn’t necessarily have to show all one’s cards at once.  I think they can afford to do less, in some respects.  Going back to “Pulse/Apology”, the silent score supports Vader’s moments of suspension beautifully, and I find myself wishing it would last longer when jarringly, a background score of medieval chants is introduced.  Although the sounds are haunting, they are also distracting from the text.  Perhaps if the music were more sparse, I’d be able to decipher the text better.

In Transit marks a choreographic rite-of-passage; the event where artistic directors Jenny Showalter and Lyndsey Vader show form a synthesis of what they’ve gathered over the past few years—from schoolings at SUNY Brockport, residencies in New York and Chicago, and mentors such as Pamela Vail, and Don Halquist (guest choreographers in the program).  What an appropriate title indeed!  Congratulations to them as they make this daring  transition from the classroom/studio into the professional dance world.  And while there are always points to work on, there are outnumbering points of interest that give this company much success!

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Teresa Lynn
Performance:  Dance by Treeline Danceworks
Venue:  Center for Performance Research, CPR
Show Date:  November 6, 2010
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Armitage Gone’s World Premiere of Three Theories at Cedar Lake on Thursday June 3rd undoubtedly proves their staying power.  Impetus for this work came from choreographer and artistic director Karol Armitage’s reading of Brian Green’s best selling book on theoretical physics, The Elegant Universe.  The book focuses on the conflict between Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics vs. the newest String Theory.  This piece, using dancers as physical icons for this conflict, breathes stunning clarity into otherwise less tangible concepts.  Had physics class been this intriguing in high school I would have been a far more apt student.  Armitage’s confident dancers have no limit to their physical prowess, and in moments of silence, hearing a pin drop would have echoed loudly in the packed space.  

Armitage describes the first piece Relativity as ‘twisting traditional vertical and horizontal lines of dance to expose the poetry of Einstein’s theory.’  Gorgeous strings pierce the echo of appreciation’s silence as Kristina Bethel-Blunt and Leonides D. Arpon ooze sensuality.  In their duet limbs intertwine with care so certain it’s as if they’re handling a time bomb.  This piece favors exposure of sinewy lines with the women donning black bikinis and the men black boxer briefs.  Concave shapes perforate the bulk of Armitage’s work in this piece.  When 10 of the 11 company members disperse into duets their undulating qualities lead into writhing that transfixes the audience.  When Bethel-Blunt and Arpon return to reprise their duet, their connectivity stands tall with Bethel-Blunts Amazon qualities and Arpon’s strong grounded command.  The piece ends with a unison section so mesmerizing I barely notice William Isaac’s downstage presence as he performs a solo over the undercurrent of the company.  A pre-cursor to his exemplary role in Quantum, the second piece, a second viewing would lead my eyes to his limbs immediately.

In Quantum, the time bomb Bethel-Blunt and Arpon handled so attentively explodes in a fashion that makes destruction seductive.  At the crux of this are Isaac and Emily Wagner in a duet thickly infused with sexuality and a ‘don’t you dare look away’ attitude that cannot be denied fruition. Wagner is a snake en pointe with piercing eyes, Princess Leia buns, impeccable technique and with her head permanently cocked forward on her spine, she has an uncanny ability to get as close to the audience as possible.  The duet comes down center at one point and Wagner nearly leaps onto the lap of a front row viewer – and not to his disappointment in the least.  Clifton Taylor’s lighting drowns them in fluorescent light only to switch to a blackout – and when the lights return the dancers are found in a new position across the stage as if controlled by a switch.   No detail goes forgotten as Wagner and Isaac’s ooze about the stage with acute sharpness and exaction.  Rhys Chatham’s original score features 100 drums and guitars whose cacophony give way to exclamatory extremities that gain momentum with every moment.  Best described as magical, the crazy orchestral crashes fuel the tenacious take-no-prisoners-prowess of every dancer.  Dubbed the "Punk Ballerina" by Vanity Fair, Armitage demands the same attitude of her dancers and each delivers.  Prim holds no bearing in this work that uses volatility like air to get their message to the masses.  Another highlight is watching Mei-Hua Wang being held in a straddle above Marlon Taylor-Wiles head only to be turned 360 degrees at a crescendo’s dictation.  Far outnumbered by the instruments that accompany them Armitage’s dancers evoke the strength of an army.

Perhaps because this theory is the youngest, the final piece derived from String Theory is the most lackluster.  Largely due to the intense impression Quantum leaves, String seems to wane in the memorable arena.  The stunning Megumi Eda serves as "the one dancer consumed by big volumes of geometry influencing the company" as Armitage states in her intro speech.  Enveloping subtle movement with sinewy limbs the company supports Eda with largely unison phrases.  Settling into submissive poses on the floor, the heat created throughout the eve leaves beads of sweat dripping and flying through the air.  Melting into mellowness, the dancers are bathed in warm light revealing each pulsating muscle in the final stage picture.  The company circles around Eda with outstretched arms yearning for her.

In one evening, Armitage cultivates envy in the eyes of each person at Cedar Lake.  Rising simultaneously to their feet, the audience applauds through several rounds of audience bows.  Go see Armitage Gone! to connect to physics with the same desperation and transformative energy Armitage conducts, so generously, with her audiences.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Eileen Elizabeth
Performance:  Three Theories
Compay:  Armitage Gone!
Venue:  Cedar Lake
Show Date:  June 3, 2010
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In a new program at Symphony Space     David Parker and Gina Gibney present an interwoven evening of works that show just how different and yet subtly reminiscent two very distinct contemporary works can be.  For the new series entitled “Short Form Weave,” Parker and Gibney are invited to make works to the music of composer, Ryan Lott that would, in presentation, vibe off the other’s kinesthetic energy.  The resulting dances are presented in delightful tandem, first a section of Parker’s Other Arrangements then a chunk of Gibney’s concrete mechanique and so on, four sections in total, with no intermission. The original sound score is performed live by Lott himself, sometimes appearing with a just a laptop, and sometimes with the music ensemble, yMusic, just behind an opaque scrim.

Watching dances in this format allows for a remarkable game of compare and contrast.  I am struck immediately by both choreographers’ attention to musicality.  Parker likes rhythm…  Like a concert with Bobby McFerrin, his dancers slap themselves and each other; they stamp the floor and interact accompanied by distorted voiceovers to create a mottled fabric of humanistic happenings.  On the other hand, Gibney works with the full ensemble of musicians playing cyclical and dramatic classical sounding music in which she wonderfully mimics each musical movement’s sensibility within her own choreographic structures.  When the ensemble plays arcs and rolling shifts, she gives us leaps and circling partner lifts in canon.  When the score shifts to staccato pulses, her dancers turn their heads sharply from side to side leaning forearms into the floor and flipping their bodies unison.

The resulting emotional life of each work are strikingly different in tone.  Parker has his dancers quickly come in and out of moods dancing wildly and hopping, flailing about but then walking slowly, pausing to look pointedly at one another.  Out of everyone in Parker’s more active section, my favorite is Amber Sloan; fully committed to every movement, Parker’s piece seems tailor-made for Sloan with her noticeably long limbs and perfectly awkward, perfectly weird quirks.  Love her….

In Parker’s final work of the evening, Parker is a delight.  He comes closest to theater when a duet, that begins as a slapping game, progresses into a fun vaudevillian rendition of “Tea for Two,” remarkably well sung by Jeffrey Kazin and Nic Petry.  Although the jokes here are predictable, I sincerely enjoy the rhythmic play in which each man tries to steal the other’s spotlight as well as enjoy the queer reading of the song.

In contrast, Gibney’s work gives emotionality as a starting point with tantalizing texture.  Her dancers, beautiful and very clean, have mastered the controlled, swooping feel of her movements (Joshua Palmer looks exceptionally “on” in his quick shifts between off balance turns and sharp, directed gestures).   At the very end of the second section of Gibney’s work, a long, angst-filled duet winds down into running and circular suspended lifts. The dancers twirl as the music plays elongated and slightly grating chords, and because here Gibney goes against the music’s overwhelming rhythm, the lights quickly fade on a gripping scene still fueled by a fiery disharmony.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Meghan Frederick
Performance:  Short Form Weave- The Bang Group and Gibney Dance
Choreography: David Parker and Gina Gibney
Venue:  Symphony Space
Show Date:  March 5, 2010
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in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.

Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

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For every new person
who signs-up to be a member of the
iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – April 1.
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Come to Fresh Tracks presented by Dance Theater Workshop and expect to be surprised.  Fresh Tracks 2010 offers some shocking works from new choreographers seeking to get their names out there.

First on the program is up and down by Makiko Tamura who also dances in the piece alongside Ryoji Sasamoto. The dance is inspired by a long distance relationship of two people with the world in between.  One is on top, experiencing day, when the opposite is on bottom, experiencing night.  The couple, each wearing one shoe, seem two halves of one whole.  They stare out in the distance yearning to connect, and their movements influence the other, yet the distance remains apparent.  The choreography is fun and quirky, with moments of touching intimacy conveyed through interesting partnering.  Set among a landscape of discarded clothing, the dancers interact with different articles of clothing providing another layer to the work.

The Miner is choreographed by Eleanor Smith and contains no music. The dance is performed by Molly Lieber, who provides a sort of soundtrack with her breathing and dancing. This dance could be dissected into various parts that present different activities including (but not limited to anything) swimming, leaping like a frog, sprinting a ten foot distance, and playing the piano. Amazingly, the solo dancer is able to hold the audience captive as she explores the space and time she is given. Though the choreography is set, she seems to be improvising, often unaware of others watching, often turning her back. Perhaps this voyeuristic perspective adds excitement to the audience’s experience of the work. “The Miner” is an artistic experimentation of movement that is honest and inspiring.

We are Weather choreographed by Vanessa Anspaugh and her dancers seems to present the difficulties faced in a triangulated relationship.  The dancers Aretha Aoki, Lily Gold and Mary Read all have powerful stage presences that are cool and calm though some moments in the dance are quite dramatic.  With natural pedestrian movement the piece is nonetheless well-crafted and intentional.

Good Girl is a solo performance by dancer and choreographer Liz Santoro, performing with a projection of herself.  Provocative and entertaining, the dance confronts our expectations of what we consider a “Good Girl.”  Liz Santoro keeps the choreography simple, including a simple first arabesque- what better way to convey innocent intentions?  I say, dare to put yourself out there, Good Girl!

Naughty Bits is a work by Jen McGinn and gathered inspiration from the Chronicles of Narnia.  Dancers are adorned with animal elements: a furry paw, feathers sprouting from an arm, horns upon a forehead.  One dancer toots a horn signaling the dance to begin. The dancers form a mass of morphing faces, expressions evolving from happy to sad to relief.  One dancer is set apart; she takes off her bottom garments and dances in a clergy shirt and collar.  Is this a statement about the “Naughty Bits” of society?  After seeing this work, that is something you will have to decide for yourself!

The evening performance concludes with Heart Ain’t In It: Four-Chamber Studies. Though this work doesn’t seem to contain much dancing, the choreography by Enrico D. Wey presents an interesting paradox of the easily replaceable dancer. Live music is performed, then mimicked by another cast who takes the final bow.

An awesome part of Dance Theater Workshops’ Fresh Tracks series is its post-performance wine and discussion with the artists.  It is especially interesting for the audience to interact with the artists of such abstract works and amusing that many of the artists express ambiguity in their responses encouraging each member of the audience to discover how the dances reverberate within themselves.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Lea McGowan
Performance: Fresh Tracks 2010
Choreography: Makiko Tamura, Eleanor Smith, Vanessa Anspaugh, Liz Santoro, Jen McGinn, Enrico D. Wey
Venue: Dance Theater Workshop, New York City
Performance Date: February 11, 2010
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iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.

Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

The iDANZ Commitment
For every new person
who signs-up to be a member of the
iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – March 1.
Go to www.iDANZ.com To help save lives by
Becoming a Member of iDANZ Today!

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Urban Bush Women presents an insightful evening of celebration at New York City’s Dance Theater Workshop entitled Zollar: Uncensored…  Jawole’s unapologetically raw interpretation of the beauty and strength of womanhood. 

The show begins with Jawole herself standing in a pool of light and continues on with song.  The entire show is narrated by the voices of Somi, Pyeng Threadgill, and once again, Jawole herself, who sing folkloric music, traditional to the different places of the African Diaspora, fused with a more “jazz-like” sound and African American Spiritual.  With accompaniment by percussionist, Beverly Botsford, the movement also fuses these traditions with a touch of modern dance, characteristic of Jawole’s movement style.

The first major dance section gives an interesting perspective on each women’s experience as the dancers go in-and-out of hip gyrations, applying lipstick and seeming to be in their own inner worlds of turmoil.  It is a happy experience at times and painfully complicated at others.  The feelings in this section expresses mixtures of eroticism, pain, pleasure, joyfulness, and pride…  The dancers are at all moments comfortable in their own skin, even in a later section where they actually vocalize "orgasmic" sensations but from different experiences. One dancer even screams in pleasure as she actually eats a cupcake on stage!

The show continues on the ride through sections where the dancers celebrate and get down by “shaking what they mama gave them,” to where they literally are chanting to each other on stage, to more emotional sections where a dancer performs an amazing solo completely naked.  She is led on the stage by Jawole and a poem which describes her story full of abuse and disregard because she is a woman.  I am a bit frustrated because the program does not specify who the soloists are, but I soon forget as I watch the “unidentified" dancer throw her body onto the ground repeatedly, rolling around and thrashing in pain with control that is only characteristic of a strong and well-centered dancer.  She is more than comfortable with herself and her nudity which is also an admirable thing both as a dancer, for her commitment to telling a story through her art, and as a women, who is comfortable in her skin and who fights against all the assumptions and negativity that is based on body image in the dance world.  All of Jawole’s dancers are strong, technical, and represent the beauty that the feminine body has to offer which is often oppressed in the dance world.  (That’s a whole other discussion..lol)  Why do dancers hate these things?  Hips, thighs, breasts, hey… that’s a part of womanhood…  A great thing to see on stage!!  Love it!

After the soloist fights she is saved by the other dancers who swirl around her and actually dress her on stage.  They end up dancing together celebrating the power that faith and spiritual guides give us to overcome.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by JoiLynn
Choreographer:  Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Performance:  Urban Bush Women
Venue:  Dance Theater Workshop, DTW
Show Date:  January 20, 2010
www.iDANZ.com

iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.

Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

The iDANZ Commitment
For every new person
who signs-up to be a member of the
iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – March 1.
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Becoming a Member of iDANZ Today!

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The first piece, RISE, gives Varone the challenge of exploring another way to create dance.  New York audiences are seeing it for the first time since 2004 when it last performed here.  The dance begins with the long-limbed Julia Burrer, who graces the space around her with smooth transitions from one horizontal shifting leg movement to a shoulder roll leading into the next step.  Never once does she falter or pause to break the confident flow of twists and jumps.  The rest of the dancers enter individually or coupled.  Movement is loose, thrown, and daring.  Each dancer has a plié so deep it seems they could drop their center of gravity down to the basement before bringing it back up in an instant to leap through the air.  My focus often goes to Natalie Desch because her landings are so malleable that she makes me question my preconceived notion of the hard dance floor.  Rolling through her feet toe to heel, heel to toe, or even diagonally, the floor seemingly takes on a gooey texture.  I’ve found that this requires a lot of ankle strength and maintenance on the lower legs since I struggle with such landing versatility myself (it’s a trend in contemporary works and can also be seen in the way Batsheva dancers use their feet and ankles).

There are instant WOW moments that make you not want to blink so as not to miss any more.  The spatial awareness that the company has as a whole is more powerful than the awareness that most of us even have with the back of our own hand.  There are so many weaving and winding moments in the group choreography, all requiring skilled dancers that work well together.

The second piece of the evening is HOME, a dramatic storytelling piece that distills movement to the bare minimum.  Varone describes it as a “crystallization of time.”  Two former company members perform it for us. The piece is about love between a man and a woman, yet not the happily-ever-after moments. The choreography gets to the root of gestures expressing love or discontent to an audience full of young and old, single and married.  A powerful moment happens when the two dancers lie beside each other and the man, embracing her, moves his hand to hold hers.  This simple gesture does me in.  If HOME could be made into a film with the same performers, there would be Oscar nominations for sure.  This dance is perfect for an intimate theater space where you can see the facial expressions and gestured details.

What follows are excerpts in the making from Varone’s new piece CHAPTERS FROM BROKEN NOVELS. Each section, based on a quote or something Varone heard in passing, is entirely different from the next.  These works can be presented together as a full-length evening show or standing alone separately.  Natalie Desch’s solo, based on a quote from “The Hours” is haunting and serious.  Then, a comedic solo, based on something heard in passing, showcases the quirky virtuosity of Erin Owen.  Now, imagine the scope of comedy in this piece knowing that the quote the piece is based on is this:  “What do you really think is going on when a child is locked in the bathroom for an hour and the water is running and he says he’s doing nothing.”

The final piece of the evening, created merely a few rehearsals in advance just for this edition of STRIPPED, is a staging of Da Tempeste from Handels’s “Gulio Cesare.”  The piece features Metropolitan Opera star Elizabeth Futral with pianist Kevin Murphy.  This joyful and upbeat piece fits the music very well, using musical accents to guide comedic timing strewn throughout.  Definitely a great way to end the show.

Varone’s style is unique yet clearly lovable and accessible.  His choreographic genius shows true creativity and fine-tuning skills from years of practice.  He definitely speaks through movement and his dancers are great interpreters.

The fifth edition of STRIPPED performs April 23rd, 8pm at the same place.  There is limited
seating so buy your tickets in advance because this show is not to be missed!  For more details
about the next STRIPPED and the company, go to www.DougVaroneAndDancers.org.

 iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Jessica Shahinian    
Performance: Stripped
Choreographer:  Doug Varone
Venue: Buttenweiser Hall, 92nd Street Y
Show Date: January 29th, 2010
www.iDANZ.com

iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster. Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?

Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

The iDANZ Commitment
For every new person who signs-up to be a member of the
iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – March 1.
Go to www.iDANZ.com To help save lives by 
Becoming a Member of iDANZ Today!

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French choreographer Pascal Rioult brings his company RIOULT and a number of dynamic and diverse works to the to The Joyce Theater.  Known for his energetic choreography that draws from his experience dancing for the Martha Graham Dance Company but is uniquely his own, Rioult possesses a strong sense of traditional form and craft as well as the ability to create ambitious works that seem to extend beyond the limits of the stage. RIOULT’s current season at the Joyce Theater includes a number of premieres and repertory in Program A, as well as an evening-length piece The Great Mass, in Program B.

The Great Mass is performed in two-acts and danced to Mozart’s “Great Mass in C minor K. 427.”  Rioult created The Great Mass as a tribute to the human spirit and an exploration of the divine.  The work is a collage of powerful images that carry the audience along on a spiritual journey.  Although there are very few original ideas or exceptionally innovative movement phrases in The Great Mass, the dancers give emotional performances that demonstrate a range from subtlety to complete abandon. Dancer Robert Robinson is exceptional and at times steals the show; he executes every movement as if delivering a sweeping solo, even though he never misses a beat and is perfectly in sync with the other dancers.

Mozart’s “Great Mass,” as with most of the brilliant composer’s work, is moving all on it’s own.  Rioult has the difficult challenge of choreographing a dance work that can create the same epic, monumental, drama that is already inherent in the music. One of his solutions is to utilize large set elements; long stretches of white fabric are strung across the back of the stage during The Great Mass, creating large horizontal stripes on the backdrop.  Throughout the piece, Rioult draws the audience’s attention to the fabric.  In the beginning, dancer Jane Soto holds one end of a long train of the white fabric and travels slowly across the stage, covering the bodies of the rest of the dancers as if laying them to rest.  Towards the middle of the dance, red lights are brought up behind the fabric, and together with the white stripes, the fabric forms creating a slightly militaristic atmosphere as the dancers march downstage slowly and abruptly crumble to the ground one by one.  For a brief moment towards the end of the work, the dancers enter the stage behind the fabric and duck under the lowest stripe in order to spread out and fill the stage.  These theatrical images are carefully crafted and thoughtfully placed to highlight the swells in Mozart’s music.

In attempting to have the dancing match the music, most of the choreography in The Great Mass pushes the sense of drama too far.  There are wonderful moments of subtlety in the beginning of the work, where dancers pause occasionally facing front and look intently at the ground.  These introverted moments of reflection are more powerful than the grandiose group sections, some of which involve the dancers in a tight clump center-center groping at an unknown god above who shines down on them in the form of a strong center spotlight. Rioult’s innovative set-design and interesting staging would be better complimented by the more humanistic, rather than divine, aspirations of his movement.  Rioult’s strength is his ability to make an audience empathize with the dancers, and I would have liked to see their human struggles within the world of The Great Mass, rather than their attempt to reach beyond their world and into the realm of the unknown.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Tze Chun
Performance: RIOULT
Choreography: Pascal Rioult
Venue: The Joyce, New York City
Performance Date: January 24^th, 2010
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A refreshing variety of dances by emerging and experienced choreographers, Soaking WET brings downtown modern dance to the Upper West Side.

An ongoing series produced by David Parker and Jeffrey Kazin, Soaking WET presents shared-bill and single artist performances at the intimate West End Theater.  The current installment of Soaking WET showcases the work of Christopher Caines, Kelli Edwards, Marta Miller, Ainslinn Macmaster, Tiffany Mills, Kristi Spessard, and Katherine Longstreth, with special performances by Amber Sloan.

West End Theater, located on the second floor of the Church of St. Paul & St. Anthony, is the perfect size and space for the Soaking WET series.  The seating is limited to a few rows of raised pews, which offer a perfect view of formations and floor work.  Several columned archways serve as a dramatic backdrop to the curved stage area, and the walls extend a few stores high to a domed ceiling.  The program, curated by David Parker of David Parker and the Bang Group, reflects his company’s own sense of humor, musicality, and physicality.

Thursday night’s performance included the works Owe by Miller and MacMaster, LandFall by Mills, This is What We’re Doing Now by Edwards, and Suite from ARIAS by Caines.  The duet Owe, choreographed and performed by Marta Miller and Aislinn MacMaster, explores a complex and multi-faceted relationship between two women. Miller and MacMaster, who have been dancing together for over a decade, carefully craft vignettes that span a range of emotions and associations.  The dancers slow-dance, wrestle, embrace each other, and almost strangle each other, with precise movements and a strong sense of intent.

Tiffany Mills’ LandFall is a powerful solo performed by Petra van Noort, who balances small isolations of her torso and wrists with large sweeping motions.  LandFall is the least narrative of the works in the program, and Mills creates a psychological landscape in which van Noort searches for herself and possibly a way out.

Kelli Edwards’ This is What We’re Doing Now is a strikingly sincere modern dance piece in which a trio of dancers- Johan de Besche, Irene Lutts, and Edwards herself- travel along a clear and satisfying choreographic arc.  The piece, set to various Lieder by Schubert, opens with the dancers taking a moment to quickly prepare themselves in plain view of the audience.  As they briefly adjust their costumes and nod to each, they set the tone of the piece; the audience enters into the dancers’ world, experiences the movement empathetically, and feels involved in the dancers’ story.  The dancers then whisk through a whimsical and musically sophisticated series of phrases.  Edwards combines constantly changing formations and cannons fluently and with ease.  The piece then transitions into a number of duets, during which the third dancer sits to the side and observes.  These duets are intimate and grounded.  The dancers move each other’s limbs, use each other’s weight, and at times simply support each other.  Although the dynamics and relationships between the dancers in the duets change throughout these partnering sections, Edwards maintains gentleness and inquisitiveness in the task-based movements.

The evening concluded with Christopher Caines Dance Company performing Suites from ARIAS.  Set at a cocktail party, the piece opens with dancers greeting each other cordially and clinking champagne glasses.  Caines’ mixture of waltz steps and pedestrian gestures with darker elements (two dancers stepping over the sprawled body of a third dancer comes to mind) is a bit confusing.  The audience would be more inclined to journey into abstraction with Caines’ dancers if the piece returns to the cocktail party narrative throughout the work.  Nonetheless, dancer Wendy Joy Reinert’s stunning performance showcases Caines’ musical sensibility and graceful phrases.

Be sure to check out the next installment of Soaking WET, which returns to the West End Theater May 13-16^th with works by Deborah Lohse, Oan Spencer Bell, and Ben Munisteri. 

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Tze Chun
Performance:  Soaking WET
Venue:  West End Theater
Show Date:  January 21, 2010
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iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders
in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.

MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency
response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster. 
Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?
Click Here to Send a Direct Donation to Doctors Without Borders

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iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – 31.
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In the elevator of the Baryshnikov Arts Center I am met with an exorbitant amount of energy. “I hope we’re not late late late! I want to see him sooo badly,” chirp the people crowded in with me. David Dorfman’s new work-in-progress is entitled The Prophets of Funk and my elevator mates are just as eager as I am to see this profound prophet of dance theater at APAP on Sunday January 9^th.

Entering as the newly incarnated piece begins, Dorfman stands in 60s duds and heeled clogs talking about the company’s plans for the piece’s development.  In between his musings, he intersperses lines from Sly and the Family Stone, “if you want me to staaay I’ll be around todaaaay to be available for you to seeeee.”  After mentioning that the final stages of this piece may * fingers crossed *involve performing with Sly and the Family Stone, the remaining company members join him on stage for a "band picture."

Dorfman kneels to take the picture as the red spandex, rainbow colored, bell-bottomed donning company member’s boogie into a tableau. One dancer begins subtle isolated movements while speaking about how prophets "take your mind to the future but your body’s still here." Her body control matches her control of her voice.  Never booming or startling but equally powerful, she wields them in a way that reeks of anything but newness.  The company’s history of delving deep into the worlds of both dance and theater to ignite emotional and physical responses from their audience pervade The Baryshnikov Arts Center now.  So while this piece may be new, it reflects merely an application of the company’s securely founded process.

The tableau disbands and before her melancholy message resonates, the company explodes into dance so perfectly full of life and vitality I laugh at how much MTV music videos lack.  Dorfman cheers the company on as the group works through unison, trios and duets.  With hugely experimental partnering and effortless weight shifts, I can’t imagine how this will develop over the next few months/year.  In one moment, the company stands in a straight line with a male company member professing a lengthy diatribe with the finesse of slam poetry.  As he approaches the line’s end, a particularly fetching female dancer brings his first stuttering.  Not immune to this choreographed distraction the pair begins circling each other like mates in a forest, sexual energy building with every moment.  As living, breathing playground pieces they crawl, roll and climb with a voracious appetite for movement and each other.

A very promising new piece, David Dorfman’s "work-in-progress," The Prophets of Funk, starts high out-of-the-gate, keeping Dorfman fans salivating for more…

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Eileen Elizabeth
Performance:  APAP
Compay: David Dorfman Dance
Venue: Baryshnikov Arts Center
Show Date: January 9, 2010
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iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders


in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts.
MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster. 
Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses,
and supplies to victims in this crisis?

For every new person who signs-up to be a member of the
iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – 31.
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Richard Alston’s newest season at the Joyce is a surprising medley of three works, blending disparate styles into one evening of stirring dance.

Alston, a British choreographer, begins the program with Shuffle it Right from 2008- a very American dance for an American audience. Featuring the early jazz music of Hoagy Carmichael, Alston’s dancers glide and jive through accentuated low turns with bent wrists, floating along then breaking down with little hops- much like a child who can’t conceal his excitement. Alston’s men are made to dance in white pants, shirts, and socks; as they swoop through lunges, they seem even more "cool" and, as they execute Alston’s demanding and precise choreography, one can’t help but applaud their negotiation of such slippery business. The women are in full-skirted dresses with colorful patterns on white backgrounds; immediately one notices their long legs and uniformly well-pointed feet.  Alston’s company is obviously well-trained and dances together beautifully, however, Alston seems to rely rather too heavily on unison.  When he does mix things up, the effect is of a kaleidoscope suddenly shifting, but then, there they are, altogether again.

Following with Movements from Petrushka, Alston loses much of the sophistication he has built in the opening work. This piece, about the parallels between Nijinsky and the famously tortured role he created, pits a solo male dancer against a crowd of Russian revelers. They dance with feet flexed, he writhes in growing agony, clutching his head and waving his arms in speedy circles. He is eventually set upon by the crowd which he repels and pushes to the floor. The work ends with our hero silhouetted against a bright blue backdrop, one hand to his head and the other outstretched.  I very much enjoyed the stage design by Liz Reed who sourced the marvelously creepy images that serve as backdrop from the original Diaghilev production a century ago.

To end, the company presents Blow Over, also from 2008, set to music by Philip Glass.  In by far the most exciting piece of the evening, Alston shows remarkable stylistic variety, creating movement phrases where his dancers are asked to loose the understated sophistication of Shuffle and replace it with an energetic abandonment and flinging of limbs.  Growing from the plodding chorus of "Open the Kingdom" to the whirling duet of "Changing Opinions," Alston and his dancers find freedom to Glass’ pulsing score and haunting pop lyrics.  At one point Alston returns to a preferred grouping of two quartets, one male, one female. The women throw themselves to the floor in splits as the men run and arch backwards in passé. At times like these, his dancers achieve a wonderful recklessness, but too often he staunches it before it can really become ecstatic. It seems that if he could just turn it up a notch all over, he would have had a fantastic piece.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Meghan Frederick
Performance: Richard Alston Dance Company
Choreography:  Richard Alston
Venue:  The Joyce Theater
Show Date:  January 15, 2010
www.iDANZ.com

iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders



in their Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts. 
MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti for 19 years, most recently operating three emergency hospitals in Port-au-Prince, and is mobilizing a large emergency response to the Haiti/earthquake disaster.  Can you please help them provide medicine, surgeons, nurses, and supplies to victims in this crisis?

For every new person who signs-up to be a member of the
iDANZ Social Network, iDANZ will donate $1 to
Doctors Without Borders January 18 – 31. 

Have You Seen the iDANZ Social Network?

Click Here To Become a Member
of iDANZ.com Today!

The More Members We Have, The More We Can
Make a Difference.
It’s Free!
iDANZ – The Social Network Where Dancers Live!

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