Thursday March 19, 2009 - TAKE Dance organized an evening for their friends and fans at the Ailey Studios. Previews of coming events were on the agenda, and there was plenty of buzz about the upcoming premiere of the film. There was wine and cheese and socializing (which I am not very good at - so I brought along the very sociable Avi Scher to help bolster my conversational skills). My fellow bloggers Taylor and Tonya were there. Above: the boys of TAKE Dance: Kile Hotchkiss, Milan Misko and John Eirich in a Mary Ann Moy photo.
Take's Company are a vibrant collection of dance personalities and physical types, each making a very personal contribution to the overall effect. He has three petite Asian beauties: Sharon Park, Nana Tsuda and Mariko Kurihara; and three very well-contrasted American women: JIll Echo, Amy Young and Kristen Arnold. Milan is tall and athletic, Kile is tall and more balletic, and John is a compact, dynamic dancer. They have all meshed their individual elements into Take's style, and they move easily thru solos, various partnered passages and ensembles where you can focus on any one of them and enjoy their distinctive attributes as dancers.
Tonight we saw excerpts-in-progress of two works. The first, to the music of Arvo Part, will become part of the larger piece FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW which Take originally set on dancers from The New School and which made a striking impact when I saw the two already-completed segments last May.
Then a change of pace for the more extroverted and playful SHABON ("Bubbles" in Japanese) set with great success to a Steve Reich score (I've liked everything I've ever seen set to Reich!) in which bubble machines fill the air as the dancers sweep thru swift-paced patterns and partnerings...and at one point Mariko crosses the diagonal walking on the shoulders of her colleagues.
I'm never sure at the rehearsal events whether it's good form to mention individual dancers, especially when they are all working so hard and so beautifully. But I did feel particularly entranced by Nana Tsuda's solo in FOOTSTEPS - she is so expressive and her movement full of delicate nuances - and by a powerful duet for Kristen Arnold and Milan Misko in which Kristen back-bends over Milan's back and into a handstand, a striking visual image. John Eirich took a couple of astounding full-body falls which caused ripples of disbelief to pass thru the spectators. Later, John and Nana paired up ideally, making me want to see them dance together more. But really, all the dancers looked great.
After the dancing, everyone stayed on to chat. I loved talking to Amy Young (above photo by Mary Ann Moy) who just had an extraordinary season with the Paul Taylor Dance Company at City Center. Finally I had a chance - and felt relaxed enough - to talk to these dancers who I've admired so much, and it turned out that Avi knew some of them from past gigs. It's always great to see publicist deluxe Michelle Brandon Tabnick, too. We'll all meet up again on Sunday for the premiere of the film.
The evening did just exactly what this sort of studio event should do: make you want to see more - more of these works and these dancers. More TAKE Dance.
Things I never knew about Takehiro: he set out to be a professional baseball player til a shoulder injury altered his plans. He got his beginnings in dance by break-dancing with his friends on the sidewalks of Tokyo. Then one thing led to another...
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