Saturday January 8, 2011 - Parsons Dance are preparing for their season at The Joyce and today they invited Kokyat and me to their rehearsal at MMAC.
Click on each image in this article to enlarge.
I suppose I was only one of hundreds of people (of both sexes) who fell in love with David Parsons when he was dancing with Paul Taylor Dance Company. I'll never forget those summers at the Pillow when we trekked up there with great frequency to see David perform with his Taylor colleagues. Then one summer came the announcement that David was going to present some of his own choreography. That was the start of it: I like to think that I was present for the birth of Parsons Dance. Read about it here.
Flash forward to today: Parsons Dance is one of the premiere international contemporary dance companies. For their coming season at The Joyce they are preparing three new works which will share programmes with established favorites from the Parsons repertoire. At this rehearsal we saw two of these:
WALK is an ensemble piece set with wonderful Parsons-energy to music by Steely Dan. The work is beautifully paced and structured and the music carries the dancers along in the most natural way. A gallery of Kokyat's images from WALK may be seen here.
A few weeks ago I saw the new duet PORTINARI at a small studio-showing for invited guests. David has set this work to the famous Samuel Barber ADAGIO FOR STRINGS and though the music is thrice-familiar it seemed remarkably fresh and moving today, enhanced by David's poetic choreography and extraordinarily poetic dancing from Sarah Braverman and Miguel Quinones. I was so moved by the experience that I was wiping my tears on my sleeve.
Immediately after this rehearsal the Parsons dancers were heading over to City Center for an APAP presentation. They had cooked up an excerpt from NASCIMENTO as a finale for their showing and they ran thru it with plenty of zest. Above: Abby Silva Gavezzoli and the Parsons boys. Kokyat remarked on his efforts to deal photographically with David's visual polyphonia since there were often so many different things happening at the same time. But I think he caught the essence of this exciting piece.
Since I last saw Parsons Dance in full performance mode, the roster of artists has changed extensively. Today offered a great chance to meet the Company's newer dancers and to watch them at close range, getting a real sense of their personalities. Abby Silva Gavezzoli and Miguel Quinones - both established Parsons stars - are simply remarkable dancers and they are just as nice as they are talented.
So, we had a great time and now we look forward eagerly to the Parsons Dance season at The Joyce. Many thanks to Elizabeth Koeppen, the Company's Associate Artistic Director, for her warm welcome...and to publicist Michelle Tabnick for arranging our visit today. And a huge 'bravo' to each dancer as well.
Galleries of images from each of the three works that we saw will appear on my blog over the next few days.
All photos: Kokyat.
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