Saturday June 4, 2011 matinee - Above, Yi-Chun Wu's photo from Que Color Tiene El Amor?, a passionate duet created by Ricardo Flores and performed by 360° Dance Company in their programme at Dance Theater Workshop. En route to this matinee performance I ran into Josiah Guitian who I'd just seen at his Rioult rehearsal earlier in the week. Josiah was also heading to DTW since a friend of his was among the 360°dancers.
The duet Que Color Tiene El Amor? was one of the highlights of the afternoon, thanks to the dancers Danelle Morgan and Martin Lofsnes who were photographed by Kokyat in an earlier rehearsal (above). Their physical beauty and intensity created a sensual atmosphere of the complex mysteries of romantic relationships.
The most provocative aspects of today's performance - in addition to the Flores duet - were three very dissimilar solos. The first, a sexy come-on with a tongue-in-cheek wittiness about is was Spike Heel, danced by Hana Ginsberg. Martin Lofsnes danced Time Is Money, created by Jane Dudley in 1934 and set to a spoken poem. Kokyat and I watched Martin preparing for this powerful solo last week. His physicality and the suppleness of his movement were vastly pleasing to watch. Likewise, dancer Alessandra Prosperi gave an impressive and very satisfying performance of another Jane Dudley solo, Cante Flamenco (1946).
Photo of Jane Dudley, above. Read about her here.
Of the three larger-scaled works, the most satisfying was SAND. Danced by six young women who had participated in the Company's repertory workshop, SAND moved well and had the benefit of fine music by Arvo Part. The young dancers did very well.
In WHAT WAS STILL IS (a premiere) a powerful performance by Jerome Stigler kept the work in focus despite its being a bit too long; the dancing both here and in Ms. Prosperi's concluding SATSANG was uniformly powerful - the dancers are beautiful with strong personalities - but both works need editing. WHAT WAS STILL IS was the better-structured of the two; in SATSANG a rather pop-oriented score did not persuasively underline the choreographer's ideas, some of which were quite attractive.
Que Color Tiene El Amor?, the three solos, and the setting of Part in SAND best held the imagination. and the dancers, especially Ms. Morgan and Mssers. Lofsnes and Stigler, were so pleasing throughout.