Brother and sister team, Angel and Carmen Corella, change the tempo with their Flamenco inspired ballet duet.  They stun the audience with a precise and compelling exploration of ballet. Joyous sibling rivalry plays a huge role in this performance, and its tough to tell who would be the winner if the audience is keeping score! Between Angel’s stunning fouette turns and Carmen’s untouchable grace that extends through her fingertips, their parents are undoubtedly still beaming.  From a club atmosphere to an "impulsive wedding dance-off," they ignite the audience’s excitement immediately.  The audience cheers and roars with laughter as Angel completes a round of tour jetes complete with a shit eating grin. 

Bringing an understated and spectacular dénouement to the uproarious audience is British choreographer Russell Maliphant.  His US premiere of Afterlight Part 1 begins with legato turns in a pool of light.  Movement this slow demands highly specific artistry, and Maliphant wields his in abundance.  After two minutes of progressively quicker and quicker turns, he has the audience in the palm of his hand.  As he removes his skully, Maliphant moves beyond that small pool of light almost appearing to float.  The effortless and seemingly uncountable turns on both his knees, feet and hands brings immense pride to the term whirling dervish.  Sometimes dance has the ability to shed light on the miracle that bodies can be, and Maliphant lives this miracle.  Catch him as soon as you can to witness his phenomena firsthand!

Fall for Dance provides affordable entrance to prestigious works that run the dance gamut – and well!  Do yourself a favor and don’t miss it!

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Eileen Elizabeth
Performance:  Fall for Dance
Company: Keigwin and Company with Juilliard Dance
Venue:  City Center
Show Date:  October 6, 2010
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FIVE PERFORMANCES WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24 – SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 2010

IN JUILLIARD’S PETER JAY SHARP THEATER

Juilliard Dance, under the artistic direction of Lawrence Rhodes, presents Juilliard Dances Repertory, five performances Wednesday, March 24 – Sunday, March 28, 2010, performing classic works from the repertoire: Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace; Juilliard alumnus Paul Taylor’s Last Look; and Jerome Robbins’ N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz. Second, third and fourth-year dancers perform on this program. The Juilliard Orchestra, conducted by George Stelluto, and Juilliard Jazz musicians perform the live music for the dancers. Shows take place Wednesday, March 24, Thursday, March 25, Friday, March 26 and Saturday, March 27, all at 8 PM, with a matinee performance on Sunday, March 28 at 3 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard (155 West 65^th Street).

Tickets at $20 are available at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard or through CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500. Half-price tickets for students and seniors and TDF are accepted only at the Box Office. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or go to www.juilliard.edu.

Summerspace, was created in 1958 for Mr. Cunningham’s dance company and had its premiere on August 17, 1958 at Connecticut College in New London. The work is set to Morton Feldman’s Ixion, with backdrops and costumes by renowned artist Robert Rauschenberg. The work is set for 6 dancers (2 men and 4 women). Juilliard faculty member, Banu Ogan, a former member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1993 to 2000), and Carolyn Brown, a Juilliard alumna and one of the founding members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, have been working closely with Juilliard dancers on the piece.

Paul Taylor’s Last Look set to a score by Donald York, with a set and costumes by Alex Katz, features 9 dancers (4 men and 5 women). Last Look had its premiere in 1985 by the Paul Taylor Dance Company at New York City Center. While Last Look has been in the Taylor repertoire a longtime, it has rarely been given to other dance companies. The work has an apocalyptic feel to it, is physically-demanding and theatrical. There is no partnering and very little touching in the work, as the dancers fling themselves about. Juilliard faculty member and alumna, Linda Kent, who danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1975 through 1989 in more than 40 works of originally created and existing dances, is leading Juilliard’s dancers during the rehearsal period.

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Jerome Robbins’ N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, sometimes referred to as the ballet in sneakers, had its premiere by the Jerome Robbins’ dance company, Ballets: U.S.A., on June 8, 1958 at the Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto. Set to a jazz score by Robert Prince with urban backdrops by Ben Shahn, N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz about disaffected teenagers blends ballet, jazz and ballroom dancing with Latin, African and American rhythms. The work features 18 dancers (2 principal men and 2 principal women, 7 men and 7 women). The original costumes by Florence Klotz will be changed to modern day attire – black jeans and t-shirts, with sneakers with soles. Gary Chryst, who has danced with the Joffrey Ballet and the Nederlands Dans Theater and on Broadway in Guys and Dolls, Dancin’ and Nureyev, is working with Juilliard dancers on the piece.

During the run, Juilliard Dance will conduct an education outreach program to accompany Juilliard Dances Repertory, bringing several hundred New York City students in grades four through eight to attend an hour-long outreach performance on Friday, March 26 at 11 AM. The program introduces students to modern dance concepts, movements, and the choreographic process, as well as the role of an audience member and great dance works of today’s choreographers.

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The Peter Jay Sharp Theater houses the best dance party of the season, hands down.  Alive with birthday cakes, M.I.A. beats, Lady Gaga-esque costumes and cowboys, the New Dance Edition concert at Juilliard reminds me that I live in New York City.  Should Dorothy have landed in the theater she would have begun clicking her heels immediately.  Or would she?

The freshman piece, Unwrap These Flowers, reads as the opposite of fledgling.  From moment one, they prove their right to be in the school, in the theater, and in the professional dance world.  Vibrantly curving, athletic movement allows the moments of violence to read as intrinsic to the characters and not startling.  Their enigmatic quality of being both new and capable should keep upperclassmen on their toes.  Choreographer Andrea Miller would be wise to take a careful eye to fully sculpting the piece.  Occasionally it reads as a dance concert where the exits in and out of the wing need more preparation.  Given full continuity, this piece blows the seniors out of the water.

Boasting the best piece of the night, the sophomore class haunts a packed house with Un Denier Verre (A Last Drink).  Fabien Prioville’s Americation debut offers the audience a birthday party where the birthday girl will cry…or talk if she wants to.  Drawing on his background with dance theater choreographer Pina Bausch, Prioville makes the mistake of giving his dancers far too much text.  When devoted solely to the dance, they send chills up my spine, convincing me of the despair their words make me doubt.  The piece’s heroine, a fuchsia clad soloist, extends her torso like a snake shedding his skin, arms teaming with articulation, feet planted.  The remaining cast members execute flawless unison sections rife with tangible turmoil.  These moments seem to represent the emotional tightrope of her mind, giving physical representation to the words that might as well be axed.

Flinging the theater into a flirtatious, Friday night feel, Larry Keigwin’s Megalopolis borrows futuristic costumes from Lady Gaga, music from M.I.A., and builds on the energy that makes New York the city that never sleeps.  Two unitard-donning dancers open the piece with gyrating hips snugly held by shiny unitards with Working Girl shoulders.  Before this has a moment to get old, the stage is flooded with black and silver unitard encased dancers leaping, jogging and swirling with the precision of a marching band.  A bird’s eye view would have felt like…a night at a club where people could actually dance.  Keigwin’s greatest win is his ability to showcase talent and sexuality and acknowledge that having one doesn’t negate the ability to have the other.  Unlike Prioville, he recognizes his dancers versatility without presumptions about other artistic realms to which they can delve.

Closing the show is Aszure Barton’s Happy Little Things (Waiting On a Gruff Cloud of Wanting).  As I watch, I truly wish that Barton’s piece had more time to come into its own.  Nicole Pearce, the show’s set designer beautifully sets up a Western feel.  If Barton’s piece would have only seemed to have some connection to the West, I would be calling the pair a dream team.  Unfortunately for the seniors in this piece, it did little to honor their talent.  While their embodiment of Barton’s choreography fully shows their ability as dancers, the overall confusion of the disjointed sections, unflattering costumes, unutilized western flair, and sole dancer in cowboy boots never takes me into their "world," whatever it is.  Without a set or costumes, this piece could have engaged me fully as a work in progress.

Juilliard dancers have unlimited facility and talent, period.  When choreographers work with the very thing they were put on this earth to do, success emanates.  Uncomfortable text and poorly constructed aesthetics can only act as sequins on naturally bedazzled creatures.  Go to the Peter Sharp Theater to see the core of what Juilliard dancers do best – dance with guts, grace and abandonment.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Eileen Elizabeth
Performance:  New Dances/Edition 2009
Choreographers:  Larry Keigwin, Aszure Barton, Fabien Prioville, Andrea Miller
Venue: Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Lincoln Center
Show Date: December 12, 2009
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