Monday November 7, 2011 - Above: Henning Rubsam, choreographer and director of SenseDance, photographed by Nir Arieli in the solo Standchen, part of the Company's 20th anniversary celebration at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center. Tonight's was the final performance in a standing-room-only run. Nir Arieli took the photos you see here at the dress rehearsal. Click on the images to enhance.
The programme offered an eclectic mixture of music; while the dancing is very much rooted in classical ballet technique, with the girls usually on pointe, no two pieces look or feel similar.
Dancers Maria Phegan and Max van der Sterre (above) open the evening in Amaranthine Road, a pas de deux to music of Beata Moon. Rooted in lyricism, the duet also provides Max with some very athletic solo opportunities. Ms. Phegan is a clear and confident dancer; she and Max look fine together.
The first of the evening's solos is Gottingen, a charming song in French which is danced tonight by Henning Rubsam (above) in a matelot-striped shirt and beachy white trousers. Jaunty and whimsical, this solo seems to be over almost before it begins.
Powerful dancing from Jacqueline Stewart and Uthman Ebrahim (above) marked Petit Pas, a duet in which we hear the voice of astronaut Neil Armstrong describing the 'small step' he took on the moon's surface; and later Gloria Steinem voices the hope for a new world order. The two dancers met all the demands of this hard-edged, crucially physical dance.
Above: Uthman Ebrahim, a powerhouse dancer, in Petit Pas.
Closing the first half, Nonet is set to a remarkable score by Ricardo Llorca; the music sounds like a pure classic played on a broken turntable, throwing harmonies off-kilter and sending melodies askew. Really provocative. All nine of tonight's participating dancers appeared in this piece, moving across the space in sweeping entrances and exits while jagged fragments of partnering here and there accentuate the music's distorted symmetry. Photo above: Erin Ginn, Paul Monaghan, Ramon Thielen.
The evening's second half opened with the first of two excellent and very well-contrasted solos. In the first, Standchen, we hear familiar Schubert lied as Henning Rubsam evokes the feeling of a Sylphides poet who has wandered off from the moonlit glade of the nymphs to dance on his own. With his windswept port de bras and his silky hair flowing, Henning summoned up visions of the Romantic era.
Erin Ginn (above) was captivating in the solo Innocence. Alone in a spotlight on the deep-blue stage, Erin hardly moves from her mark during this piece, set to a song by Ron Mazurek. She speaks to us with the language of the body, pliant and coolly expressive. Excellent!
Tenancy, with music by Beata Moon, starts off as a male-bonding duet for Ramon Thielen and Henning Rubsam (above). Maria Phegan and Jacqueline Stewart intrude on this masculine world, but the piece then evolves into...
...a solo for Ramon Thielen (above) in which his sheer physicality and the emotionally charged spirit of his dancing make a strong visual statement.
Half-Life, the dynamic quartet which ends the evening, is set to music of Laibach. Above: Paul Monaghan, Max van der Sterre, Erin Ginn. Joined by Temple Kemezis, the quartet of dancers push their energy to the limits; the work ends as the dancers break down, Paul Monaghan's slow mechanical falterings poignantly neutralized as darkness falls.
Here are more of Nir Arieli's photos from the SenseDance dress rehearsal. Alternate casts appeared on different nights of the run:
Max van der Sterre and Temple Kemezis in Amaranthine Road
Paul Monaghan in Gottingen
Max van der Sterre and Maria Phegan in Amaranthine Road
Ramon Thielen and Henning Rubsam in Tenancy
Ramon Thielen in Tenancy
All photogaphy by Nir Arieli.