Sunday December 11, 2011 - Dance has been 'at home' at the 92nd Street Y for seventy-five years, and their Sundays at Three series is currently in its twentieth season. This afternoon skybetter and associates took the floor of the venerable Buttenwieser Hall for a performance of three works from repertory as well as two previews from works-in-progress. In Kokyat's rehearsal image above, the dancers are Jennifer Jones, Jordan Isadore, Kristen Arnold and Kile Hotchkiss.
Choreographer Sydney Skybetter spoke of the autobiographical elements of the works we were seeing, each reflecting the state of his personal or professional life at the time of creation. Thus the newest pieces that were previewed deal with fatherhood: LITTLE BOY, a large ensemble work, and FOR WANT OF SLEEP seem from their titles to relate directly to the arrival of the Skybetters' son; but they are not literal works, rather they are lyrical reveries.
LITTLE BOY is performed by fifteen NYU students dancing under the collective title of Second Avenue Dance Company. Here we immediately encounter the aspects of Skybetter's work that set him among the topmost echelon of choreographers on the New York contemporary dance scene, starting with the prime directive of using music that elevates the mind and the spirit. For LITTLE BOY, Skybetter has turned to music of the contemporary Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson. This composer's music has been decribed as 'insanely gorgeous'; it resonates with folkish undercurrents but takes on an incandescent quality with shimmering textures, colorful harmonies and wide-ranging rhythmic patterns.
The young dancers of the Second Avenue Dance Company responded beautifully to the choreography which is so finely structured; there were several notable individual performances - dancers I would like to see again in this and other works.
Above, dancers Jordan Isadore and Kristen Arnold in POTEMKIN PIECE, one of Skybetter's earliest choreographic creations. It is a work I have seen many times both in rehearsal and performance and it never fails to give me goosebumps with its achingly melodic Dvorak score and its quiet rapture of movement and expressive detail. Skybetter is so fortunate in his dancers; in addition to Jordan and Kristen...
...he has Kile Hotchkiss and Jennifer Jones (above). These four dancers 'read' the music and the choreography to us with a blend of elegance and intensity. In the graceful arcs of port de bras, a key element of the Skybetter style, the dancers let the music flow to their fingertips.
NEAR ABROAD is a Skybetter duet created to the haunting music of Arvo Part in 2008; it was originally performed by a man and a woman (I vividly remember the first time I saw it, danced passionately by Bryan Campbell and Kristen Arnold) but it is now danced by two men, Kile Hotchkiss and Jordan Isadore (above). In this duet, the themes of finding, holding and losing resonate profoundly with me at this point in my life.
In a question-and-answer session after the performance, audience members commented on the fraternal aspects of NEAR ABROAD and one man spoke of how the duet seemed free of sexual implications. In fact, it simply boils with passion, tenderness, longing and regret - all the elements of an intense romantic and sexual relationship. But elevated by the spirituality of the Part score, the work feels curiously 'clean'. In that paradox, the viewer will find his own frame of reference.
In the power and beauty of their performance, Kile and Jordan were nothing short of perfect.
I was very glad to have an opportunity to see the quartet TEMPORARY MATTERS again, since the first time I saw it performed it seemed somewhat eclipsed by Skybetter's HALCYON, a masterwork that ranks at the very top of my list of danceworks of the 21st century. Today, watching TEMPORARY MATTERS from two different perspectives (at the tech and then in performance) I was struck by its clarity and musicality (again, Johann Johannsson provides the music).
Above: Jordan Isadore and Kristen Arnold. At its premiere, the dancers in TEMPORARY MATTERS all wore long skirts; today they were clad in simple fitted black. This gave the piece a more severe, formal element.
Two vocal songs from Æ-music provided the basis for the closing duet for two women entitled FOR WANT OF SLEEP. I'm feeling that this will eventually be part of a larger work but even as a free-standing piece it communicates a sisterly radiance of expression from the two women, Jennifer Jones and Kristen Arnold (above).
The music, folk-like and attractively harmonized, gave the girls a movement impetus and while the style is undeniably Skybetter the tone of the piece is a bit different from his other works that I've seen. I'll be curious to see where WANT OF SLEEP takes us, and the opportunity will come in the Spring when skybetter and associates with be at Joyce SoHo from April 5th thru 22nd, 2012.
The programme could serve as a template for dance presentations in its pacing and focus, not to mention the perfection of the music. The dancing was uniformly inspired and inspiring, and in addition to Kristen, Jennifer and Kile - all of whose work I am very familiar with - I was really impressed with the potency and personality of Jordan Isadore (who recently danced with Shen Wei's company at The Armory).
Some people have asked me how I maintain my enthusiasm for dance since I see so much of it. When it comes to Skybetter, it's never a problem.
All photographs by Kokyat. Click on individual images to enlarge.