Tuesday October 26, 2010 - This first of two programmes by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet at The Joyce provided a tremendously satisfying evening of dance:
Week 1 (October 26 - 31)
"Sunday, Again" by Jo Strømgren
"UNIT IN REACTION" by Jacopo Godani (NY PREMIERE)
"Hubbub" by Alexander Ekman (NY PREMIERE)
Top photo: Jon Bond & Manuel Vignoulle in rehearsal for HUBBUB. View the Company roster here.
SUNDAY, AGAIN (Julieta Cervantes photo, above) is one of the pieces from Cedar Lake's repertoire that I most enjoy and admire and I'm very glad for the opportunity to see it again (twice...it's on both Joyce programmes). This work by Jo Stromgren is set to music of J S Bach and features the entire Company dressed in tennis whites. The theme of the work is: what to do on yet another Sunday spent with the domestic partner.
Jason Kittelberger wants to go out and play badminton and his lover Acacia Schachte wants to stay in. This leads to the work's tempestuous opening duet by these two magnificent dancers (above) in which the most edgy, risky aspects of dance partnering are displayed. The play of tension between the two dancers and the intensity of their individual personalities make this a thrilling start to the evening.
From there the work evolves into an ensemble piece with the underlying idea of getting a badminton game going. This leads to shifting dynamics between men and women and to witty moments as when Harumi Tereyama draws a shuttlecock out of her mouth and teases Jubal Battisti with it. Later, Gwynenn Taylor-Young pats down Ana-Maria Lucaciu til she finds another shuttlecock. Between these and other duets, the dancers stride across the stage with racquets and nets at the ready. Finally the game begins: men vs women. But all too soon the afternoon's over and the drapes are drawn.
UNIT IN REACTION by Jacopo Godani is a New York premiere. Six of Cedar Lake's ultra-powerful and fascinating dancers form the first of two alternating casts who will perform this work during the first week of the current season: Jon Bond, Jason Kittelberger, Oscar Ramos, Ana-Maria Lucaciu, Acacia Schachte and Ebony Williams. In a darkish setting, these dancers move with restless energy in a series of solos and duets which stretch the limits of physical movement. Acacia Schachte and Oscar Ramos seize their moments vibrantly and a duet for Ana-Maria and Ebony is especially potent. Jon Bond, one of the most thrillingly agile and sexy dancers ever to take the stage, is mind-boggling in his solo. Throughout this work with its pounding, fragmented percussion/industrial score, Jason Kittelberger is an ominous, forceful figure. The six dancers won screams and whoops from the packed house as each stepped forward for a bow at the end.
The New York premiere of Alexander Ekman's HUBUB provided a truly witty and apt finale to the evening. To the relentless clicking of that antique, obsolete apparatus - the typewriter - the dancers, stripped down to the briefest and most revealing of costumes, each have their own metal-frame podium on which they stand, sit or hide under.
In an endless, pretentious monologue the voice of dance criticism reads from the endless sheaf of typewritten pages, telling the viewer what the dance is all about, what it means and how to react to it. In fact, the narrator is saying next-to-nothing and merely stating the obvious in dressed-up language.
Central to HUBBUB is a hysterically funny duet in which the thoughts of two dancers - Harumi Tereyama and Nickemil Concepcion - are heard in voice-over as they perform a pas de deux. Harumi and Nickemil danced this piece with dead-pan expressions as the audience laughed aloud. (Above: a rehearsal photo of the pair by Jubal Battisti).
In the final movement of HUBBUB, the inner thoughts of the dancers are revealed - their mundane likes and dislikes and their secret habits. The music of Xavier Cugat had underlined the opening segments of HUBBUB but here we have one of the Chopin nocturnes, yet another imaginative stroke.
The evening ended with a genuine standing ovation.
Is twenty-six year old Alexander Ekman the world's cutest choreographer? He has my vote.
So the evening was a great kickoff for the two-week Cedar Lake season. Allthough I have a special fondness for the Company's home-theatre on 26th Street, the Joyce provides more seats - all occupied tonight - meaning that more people can see this troupe of dancers: some of the most potent and distinctive in Gotham. Ticket info here.
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