Nicholas Andre Dance never misses a step with thoughtful choreography and beautiful movers.

Wired (world premiere) sets the tone of the night at Joyce SoHo as Nick Ross gives his dancers six concise choreographic themes from 2007 forward. Nicholas Andre Dance is a champion at concert dance forms with beautiful movement and well-trained bodies. Precision and force are trademarks of the articulate choreography from Nick Ross.

From the Beginning, dancers ooze energy into the space while wearing dark-hued short unitards with lightning-inspired neon green veins running across their bodies.  The chemistry and excitement are subtly contained in the dancers’ opening sequence.  A quartet showcases the clean lines and technical work.  The women dance with a precision and unison seemingly tying the company together, while the men run the gamut of styles and diverse talents—all strong.  It is interesting to see Nick Ross’s contemporary choreography build on themes and variation creating a very structured development of his six stories –a choreographic tool and construct very characteristic in style and concept taught at SUNY Purchase College.  This alum successfully utilizes these tools of the craft to effectively articulate his own choreographic voice in each work.  The dance department at Purchase should be proud…  It is noted within the footnotes that this production does not prescribe to providing any notes whatsoever in the program.  This purist stance allows the audience their own interpretation and challenges them to think for themselves while reading the movement for clues.

Undercurrent (2009) is a mature-minded quartet where the dancers reverberate with an intense energy that builds and never quite peaks; however, well-handled, this work is exquisite to watch and enjoy.  Kristy Engel and Trista Jennings both shine in their solo sections opening up, pulling away from the corps-styled movement and letting their hair down to feature individuality.  Tommy Scrivens is riveting and caught my eye with his very masculine dancing and seasoned execution of the work.  Ross shows his softer side with all the understated elegance and emotive movement that draws on imagery and allows the audience time to savor his creation.

Another world premier, Elegy, is set to Philip Glass’ “Metamorphosis #1 & #2.”  Chris Ralph opens the work with a solo.  His sculpted frame glides across the stage and embodies Ross’ concepts with ease.  Ralph is joined by Tommy Scrivens and Aaron Walter; this athletic trio overpowers the stage.  The work drags a bit in the middle when a quartet of women performs their phrase in a very static pattern while the focus is on the men.  Moreover, the ending seems unfortunately rushed.  I would have liked to see more integration of the theme on the background dancers and not what looked to me as an unfinished section by the choreographer.

Passages (2009) features an intriguing tableau of dancers walking across a back panel of marley. Burke Wilmore’s lighting for this work is amazing and perfectly integrated into the choreography.  Twice this month I have seen him transform the white walls of Joyce SoHo with an amazing palette of colors (such as Burke’s work with the Dash Ensemble I reviewed a few weeks earlier).  Equally, Ross’ costumes in brown hues highlight the dancers’ physiques and never detract from the work.  For me, Jeremy Nedd shines with great presence in this work, especially in his duet in which he is such a strong partner.

Richard Cook, a beloved ballet faculty member at Purchase (gone too soon on July 14^th, 2009), is memorialized by Ross in The Last Man (2007), a work he dedicates to Cook. The male quartet with athletic partnering utilizes a theme of three dancers against the one to dramatic effect.  The men move beautifully and feature the best dancing of the night as Ross’ more contemporary style is infused with weight and more athletic contact work.  From the beginning to the middle, the dancing is even amongst the men and solid in choreographic structure but staggers a bit in the end as one man is about the be left on stage alone.  To counter this cliché, Ross makes the decision to leave another facing away and downstage as “the last man” is left representing loss.

The evening closes with Until Blue (2009) a strongly counterpointed work set against a beautiful blue cyc.  Ross sets his dancers in motion in lightweight patterns that speak to me about the joy of dance and fellowship of company members.  Without missing a beat, the clean lines and beautiful bodies of Nicholas Andre Dance close out their season at Joyce SoHo flying high in this well-structured repertory work. This is the most versatile of his works featuring beautiful partnering and sections infused with imagery, emotion, and the interesting placement of dancers in space.  I am in awe of how easy it seems for this company to present their best, piece after piece.  I would really like to see what this choreographer could do with an evening length piece as he has quite a talent for themes, imagery and transitions.  Nothing is lost on the audience as each movement on his cast is made manifest.

Photography by Steven Schreiber

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Sasha Deveaux
Performance:  Nicholas Andre Dance
Choreographer: Nick Ross
Dancers: Katlyn Baskin, Kristy Engel, Trista Jennings, Jeremy Nedd, Morgan Palmer, Christopher Ralph, Juan-Antonio Rodriguez (appearing courtesy of Complexions, Contemporary Ballet), Tommy Scrivens and Aaron Walter
Lighting: Burke Wilmore
Venue: Joyce SoHo, NYC
Date: December 20, 2009 @ 8:00pm
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Though I’m about to see several very professional companies at the NY Skirball Center, the energy feels more like a dance competition than a performance.  There’s intensity, discussion in between pieces and altogether a "more real than nervous for the first day of kindergarten" tight-lipped thing happening.  Instantly Dance Gotham feels like a representation of how dance is formed – through communicating and vitality.  The following four companies stood out above the other four who performed…

John-Mark Owens’ Vespers, featuring Ramona Kelly and Adrian Silver, brings vitality and life into pointe work that seems void of actual "work."  The pair’s mesmerizing duet marries grace and athleticism in a world that seems free of sharp angles.  What begins as a classically diminutive female character at the whim of the hulking male character becomes a playground for push and pull between the pair.  Just as Kelly’s strength grows beyond a classical female ballet role, Silver’s grace grows beyond a classical male ballet role.  Offering one another’s bodies as landscapes, the piece exudes infinite sensitivity.  They achieve towering shapes regardless of Kelly’s treacherous toes.  Kelly eventually abandons Silver as he lays motionless on the stage.  Owens manages to take the achingly beautiful essence of ballet to a modern place where grace does not translate to a lack of strength. 

The Dash Ensemble’s Sundowning, with choreography by Gregory Dolbashian, is beautifully enlivened by Christopher Ralph and Alexandra Johnston.  Johnston takes the focus initially with movements similar to a teenage girl donning high heals for the first time. With mannequin-esque control of her torso, her feet seem immobilized by the stage teetering one half-inch above the marley.  This focus transcends the entire piece and allows the audience to know that work is happening, that the physical bodies on the stage must exert energy to please the eyes that have marched in looking for a reason to stay open.  This is not to say that the work feels forced.  The pairing soars and connects with subtlety that softens the garish contrast of their bright yellow and purple shirts.  Power shifts flow seamlessly as their awareness of their strength is matched by the quietude of their artistry.  Ralph romances his explosiveness with lingering moments of stillness.  He flows so easily between these extremes while wearing slippery socks that the rowdy room is void of even a whisper.

Ralph appears once more in Nicholas Andre Dance’s Until Blue with choreography by Nick Ross.  Joined by five other dancers Ralph athletic movement quality shines so brightly he’s easily recognizable from earlier in the evening.  The sextet proves that bike shorts can be made beautiful when donned by the right bodies.  With just four dancers on stage unison quickly breaks into dueling duets whose energy encourages the opposite pairing.  With the six performers on stage, the energy churns like a tornado that is worth watching without that threatening deathlike quality pervading.  They forge harmonies as opposed to dissonant chords.

Camille A. Brown’s Mary proves that words never need leave the body to communicate if that body has the head to toe dexterity of Brown.  Brown has the enigmatic ability to reach the entire audience while making you feel like an audience of one.  With her full body sign language, Brown is like a body of water oozing across the stage, navigating moments of current, riding the forces of restraint and rising beyond floods.  To watch her is to feel attached both physically and emotionally to her journey.  I feel my body shift in its seat as if I can become closer to Brown by doing so.  Truly possessive of a star quality the room seems to shine brighter because of her light.  As the true highlight of Dance Gotham Brown’s three minutes would have been reason enough to travel to the NYU Skirball Center.

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Eileen Elizabeth
Performance:  Dance Gotham
Venue: NYU Skirball Center
Show Date: January 8, 2010
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iDANZ Supports Doctors Without Borders



in their Haiti 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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at Joyce SoHo
December 17 – 20, 2009 at 8pm

Nicholas Andre Dance, a New York City-based company whose mission is to bring athletic concepts of modern dance movement to a wide variety of audiences, presents its Sixth New York City season at Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), NYC December 17-20, 2009 at 8pm. Tickets are $20 ($15 for students/seniors/DancePass) andare available at

www.joyce.org or by phone at (212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111.

Nicholas Andre Dance will present two world premieres: Wired, set to music by Steve Reich and an untitled new work set to the music of Philip Glass. The company will also present recent repertory including: Until Blue (2009), an exhilarating, fast paced athletic work that pushes the dancers to their limits through the pure joy of movement. Passage (2009) is a full company work interspersed with soft gestures that grows in volume like a conversation, with graciousness and ends with the image of a wave ebbing and flowing on the shore. The piece follows the deliberate nomadic journey of a group across the land to new beginnings. Undercurrent (2009) features a quartet of men and women, with two different casts depending on the performance, who gracefully grow throughout the work while keeping a constant through line. The use of counterpoint and staging teases the eye without ever demanding it look in any one place. The company will also perform a repertory favorite The Last Man (2007), a defining piece of Mr. Ross’ work as a choreographer that is dedicated to the memory of the late Richard Cook.

Dancers: Katlyn Baskin, Kristy Engel, Trista Jennings Jeremy Nedd, Morgan Palmer, Christopher Ralph, Juan Rodriguez (appears courtesy of Complexions Contemporary Ballet), Tommy Scrivens and Aaron Walter. Lighting design by Burke Wilmore.

The mission of Nicholas Andre Dance is to bring athletic concepts of modern dance movement to a wide variety of audiences. The company creates and presents new works that are conceptual, emotional and passionate, generating an intelligent understanding and appreciation for dance.

NICHOLAS ANDRE DANCE

Joyce SoHo

155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince Streets), NYC

December 17-20, 2009 at 8pm

Tickets $20 ($15 for students/seniors/DancePass)

Tickets can be purchased at www.joyce.org or by phone at (212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111.

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