Thursday April 19, 2012 - This evening we attended an open rehearsal at the Gibney Dance Center for RIOULT's upcoming season at the Gerald W Lynch Theater at John Jay College. The Company will perform there from May 10th thru 13th. Above, one of Kokyat's rehearsal images. Click on the photo to enlarge.
For this studio presentation, the RIOULT dancers took over the huge new studio at Gibney with its exposed brick walls. Pascal Rioult (above) is one of today's most compelling dancemakers; with his superb musical taste, his luminous choreographic visions and his keen eye for choosing dancers who are both physically and emotionally engaging, watching his work is always a moving and eminently satisfying experience.
This season, inspired by the TS Eliot poem The Waste Land, Pascal Rioult collaborates with composer Joan Tower for his newest creation. Composer and choreographer talked about their joint effort in a pre-showing dialogue (above). Mr. Rioult spoke of working with his dancers without referencing the score; large paragraphs of dance were created, with improvisational elements from the dancers being part of the process. Then he played the music for his dancers and they began the task of crafting the steps and gestures to the score. The dancers talked about this process and revealed how much they loved the music on first hearing: understandably, since it is a darkly radiant and at times almost desolate piece for cello and piano.
A sustained passage from the ballet was then shown, and Ms. Tower revealed that she was seeing Pascal's setting of her music for the very first time. The underlying structure of the work stems from the dancers continually crossing the space, walking at various speeds. They pause, meet, partner, form shapes and clusters, diverge, silently emote, even kiss. It all has a mystical and rather hypnotic quality; it has a somewhat formal feel yet in fact passions seem to be alive below the surface.
Here are some of Kokyat's images from the new Tower/Rioult collaboration:
Marianna Tsartolia, Jere Hunt, Charis Haines
Holt Walborn, Charis Haines
Jere Hunt, Anastasia Soroczynski
Michael Spencer Phillips
Jane Sato, Sara Elizabeth Seger, Josiah Guitian
Charis Haines, Jere Hunt
Jane Sato, Anastasia Soroczynski
The RIOULT dancers looked great in the Tower piece which is something of a stylistic departure for them. By way of contrast, Pascal then showed two sections of his Bach ballet CELESTIAL TIDINGS with displays his more familiar full-blown lyrical style:
Jere Hunt, Jane Sato in CELESTIAL TIDES
Jere Hunt, Jane Sato, Josiah Guitian, Anastasia Soroczynski
Jere Hunt, Jane Sato
Jane Sato, Jere Hunt
Michael Spencer Phillips (foreground)
Josiah Guitian, Brian Flynn
Josiah Guitian
Charis Haines, Brian Flynn
Jane Sato, Anastasia Soroczynski
Jere Hunt, Michael Spencer Phillips
Jane Sato, Anastasia Soroczynski
Jere Hunt, Michael Spencer Phillips
Jere Hunt
For the upcoming performances, these two well-contrasted works share the bill with Pascal's 2003 setting of FIREBIRD. It promises to be an exciting event and one I'm very much looking forward to.
All rehearsal images by Kokyat.