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
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!

Share on Facebook

Emio Greco/PC brings us the dance-rock concert [purgatorio] POPOPERA this weekend at the Joyce Theater.  This is the work of Italian choreographer Emio Greco, and Dutch theater director Pieter C. Scholten who have been working together since 1995.

Laden with guitars that are used as a symbolic prop, flashy lights, and costumes, this rock show seems confused as to what it really is.  Ambiguity, meant to be poignant, remains empty.  Contemporary ballet choreography is repeated throughout the evening.  Emio Greco appears as a darkly glad figure, with some beautiful solo bits.  Michaela Riener opens the show singing from the balcony.  She makes her way to the stage where the dancers enter

and each ceremoniously places a guitar downstage. The guitars are later moved upstage in a pile, then spread out, then exchanged for a different color, then danced with.  Might this be paying homage to the guitar ?

Sometimes this show seems to try to embody Transsexual Transylvanians from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (as I recall them from my college’s midnight performance).  The singer begins in a black sequined dress and ends in a gold sequined body suit and blonde wig.  The male dancers (excluding Emio Greco) are topless; one wears silver sequined pants and another, tiny nude shorts.  Moments of boy-love and aggression flits in during transitions; while possibly commenting on male sexuality, nothing comes to a head (excuse the pun).  One of the female dancers is lovely in a full body stocking that covers her face.  The material is thin enough, that it is almost like she is dancing topless.  But, she seems androgynous and there seems to be no care towards a message on sexuality.  The dancers are devoted to something though; is it the guitar, the black-clothed man, the singer, the sequins, or the movement?  Maybe all, maybe none.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Leah Sands
Performance: [purgatorio] POPOPERA
Choreographer(s): Emio Greco/PC
Venue: Joyce Theater, New York City
Date: September 30, 2009
www.iDANZ.com

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!

Want to stay connected to iDANZ? Join our network using the following services:

Share on Facebook