Lar Lubovitch Dance Company presents stunning pieces of repertory and exciting world premieres at the Joyce Theater February 23- March 7th. Program B’s works consist of Elemental Brubeck, Vita Nova, and two world premieres:  Coltrane’s Favorite Things and Dogs of War.  This season marks the Company’s 40^th anniversary and the program’s themes reflect nostalgia for the past as well as Lubovitch’s timeless style and sensibility.

In Coltrane’s Favorite Things, the dancers generate an exuberant visual realization of Coltrane’s 1963 audio recording, to which the dance is set.  A large reproduction of Jackson Pollack’s iconic Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) hangs as a backdrop while dancers channel the beatniks dressed in somber shades of black, grey and blue.  Lubovitch skillfully crafts a correlation between jazz and dance, rather than a straight literal translation of Coltrane’s melodies and rhythms into movement.  He utilizes quick lifts to accent where the musical notes hit their highs, and incorporates synchronized arm motions that ripple across the stage in cannon when the melody takes flight.  Like fingers above piano keys, these waves flutter left and right, all the while moving along a finite direction.  At one point, the repeating crash of drum symbols causes a commotion on stage as dancers swing each other in the air, their partners’ legs clicking together in mid-lift to accent the moment of contact between stick and symbol.

In the more theatrical parts of Coltrane’s Favorite Things, dancers are satisfyingly cool, with West Side Story flair.  They smile exuberantly and revel in the music, executing phrases excitedly as if taking a mean jazz solo and loving it.  As the music crescendos, the dancers bop their heads, shimmy their shoulders and shake it out as if releasing their bodies from The Man’s oppressive hand.   At the end of the recorded music, the last two dancers on stage drop to the floor in staggered motions, pausing with the breaks in the music and flailing with the last of the horn’s blows.  The party is over for those two dancers and the curtain closes, signaling Lubovitch’s reflection on the end of a chapter in American culture.

In Vita Nova, a stunningly strong and simple duet, Katarzyna Skarpetowska and Brian McGinnis move through a series of structural poses and lifts.  The dancers shift between suspended shapes with classical grace and flawless lines while maintaining Lubovitch’s modern sense of weight, which informs the grip, pull, and tension between their bodies.

Also a duet, Dogs of War, performed by Attila Joey Csiki and Christopher Vo, addresses the relationship between two soldiers and their individual struggles to maintain a sense of humanity during wartime.  Images of barbwire, barricades, and battle scenes are projected on three screens behind the two men. These screens run a symbolic red towards the end of the work.

Dogs of War begins with two soldiers dancing in a militaristic manner.  As the most narrative of the night’s pieces, the characters then take solos, each confronting their own fears and responsibilities, and eventually engage in a complex confrontation with each other. Although on opposite sides of a war, the two men share in moments of empathy for each other and, in a fleeting passage, care for and cradle each other.  A piece as political as Dogs of War would be heavy-handed if not for Lubovitch’s ability to craft theater rather than theatrics.  Although the work and the projected images hint at the Vietnam War, within the overarching program, Dogs of War seems less like a look back, and more like a look at how things have yet to change.

With Elemental Brubeck, Lubovitch travels a bit further back in time and weaves social dances from the 1950’s into a carefree and lighthearted exploration of Dave Brubeck’s music.  In the program notes, Lubovitch references jazz once again by differentiating the “Solo” from the “Combo.”  Throughout the piece, the soloist Attila Joey Csiki (dressed in red) acts as a counterpoint to the other dancers (dressed in pastels).  The piece ends with Attila Joey Csiki taking a stylized jitterbug-inspired solo while the Combo’s dancers clap and cheer him on.

For the Company’s anniversary program, Lubovitch clearly incorporates his favorite things. Although drawing heavily from the structure and context of the music he selects, Lubovitch re-imagines the possibilities for jazz rather than relying on their inspirations to carry the works.  He transports the audience to a different era and a different mindset, where Pollack’s splattered paint hangs in the air and instills abandon into dancers’ leaps and turns. Through the luscious full movement that is Lubovitch’s signature, the Company’s performances offer enjoyment, a sense of nostalgia, and reflection free of judgment.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Tze Chun
Performance: Lar Lubovitch Dance Company
Choreography: Lar Lubovitch
Venue: The Joyce Theater, New York City
Performance Date: March 2, 2010
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Step number one, in considering Lar Lubovich’s program at the Joyce Thursday night, is opening this in your browser while you read this review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I6xkVRWzCY.

This show is a delightful group of dances presented by the talented Lar Lubovitch Dance Company.  It starts off with “Nature Boy: Kurt Elling” featuring solos by Christopher Vo and three duets.  As the curtain rises, the core company is moving fluidly in a circular motion on the edge of a spotlight center-stage.  Then we hear the lyrics “the story of a boy” effuse and Christopher Vo emerges with a lovely and quirky solo.  Next come the duets, with virtuosic spinning lifts and strong legs extensions.  In the second solo, Katarzyna Skarpetowska seems to embody the music, while Brian McGinnis embodies the musician in an interesting parallel study of the relationship between music and musician, woman and man.  Is the woman just decoration; is she more beautiful than the man; is she just beautiful because the man is creating her? Questions arise and lilt in the air.

All the works are tightly choreographed to the jazz music at its base (in the first piece the music recording was by Kurt Elling).  While the choreography is primarily modern, it brings in elements of ballet and some quirky new movement.  At poignant moments, Lubovitch riffs the movement as the jazz musicians are riffing the music.

The second piece on the program is the world premiere of “Coltrane’s Favorite Things.”  Music is a live recording of John Coltrane’s Quartet and scenery is Jackson Pollock’s “Autumn Rhythm (Number 30).”  It is fun, playful, exuberant dance.  Groups and couples come in and out, and play and dance for themselves and for their partners.  The spirit is infectious in this piece and with audience favorite, “Elemental Brubeck,” the final piece in the program (originally choreographed in 2005).

Lar Lubovitch has established himself as one of the choreographic masters of his time with his lyrical, detailed, and dynamic movement vocabulary.  Jazz music is a perfect partner for his choreography and together they bound, play, and excite.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Leah Sands
Performance:  Nature Boy: Kurt Elling; Coltrane’s Favorite Things; Elemental Brubeck
Choreographer:  Lar Lubovitch
Venue: Joyce Theater
Date:  February 23, 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!

Have You Seen the iDANZ Social Network?

Click Here To Become a Member
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