Sunday August 22, 2012 - Kokyat and I stopped in at Lydia Johnson's rehearsal at Battery Dance on this dreary, rainy day where guest artist Attila Joey Csiki (above) of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company was rehearsing with Lydia's company for the first time.
For her latest creation, a work for large ensemble, Lydia turns to the music of J. S. Bach. The piece is already well-developed choreographically and despite the fact that this was Attila's first day working with Lydia, he's already thoroughly at ease with the style; in fact his signature musicality and the silken flow of his dancing are a natural compliment to Lydia's beautifully expressive motifs of movement.
A central passage in this new dancework is a duet for Attila and Blake Hennessy-York (above). The boys have already mastered the structure of this duet and they ran thru it a few times, working out details of placement and trying various elements of partnering to achieve the desired smoothness.
Attila and Blake, above.
In a second duet, Attila dances with Lisa Innacito McBride (above).
This duet culminates with Attila falling into a beautiful swoon...
...and then re-awakening.
Kokyat was silently moving around the studio to capture the many different elements of this ballet; above, Laura DOrio and Lisa Iannacito McBride. Since we were seeing it for the first time there was a lot to take in, often with multiple things happening - apropos of Bach - at the same time. In addition to Laura and Lisa, the dancers include:
Kaitlin Accetta
Blake Hennessy-York and Sarah Pon
Lauren Jaeger
Min-Seon Kim...
...and Katie Martin.
It's always exciting to see the evolution of a new dancework and as always we felt very grateful to Lydia and the dancers for sharing their creative endeavor with us.
Lydia Johnson Dance will perform at Peridance on June 23rd and 24th, 2012 in a programme which will feature the premiere of the new Bach piece as well as ballets sent to music of Philip Glass and Osvaldo Golijov. In addition to the dancers pictured above, Jessica Sand and Kerry Shea will be dancing. Reed Luplau appears as a guest along with his Lubovitch colleague Attila Joey Csiki. Max van der Steere will also be guesting with Lydia's company. Ticket information here.
All photographes by Kokyat, with more images here.