Above: Elisa Osborne and Tim Ward of Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre in rehearsal
Sunday January 12th, 2014 - This evening's program - part of the 8th annual Dance Gotham festival - featured four dance companies performing at The Skirball down on Washington Square. On such mixed-bill evenings, it's inevitable that not everything will give every viewer equal pleasure. Tonight's show was overall one of the more enjoyable shared programs I've attended.
David Dorfman Dance opened the evening with Come, and Back Again featuring live music provided by an onstage ensemble. Danceworks where the participants talk are always off-putting for me; this piece started and ended with spoken monologues, and midway thru the house lights came up and the audeince were invited to take part in a game. What dancing there was was clever and well-executed, but as the themes veered from plastic bags to "what's your love quotient?" (the game) to musings on death, I found my patience being tested. In fairness, I'll add that my companion enjoyed this piece and that the audience response was more than positive.
The evening then soared upward as Hubbard Street 2 presented Gregory Dolbashian's By the skin of my teeth, set to a musical collage of varying rhythms and textures. Six dancers appear in this restless piece, showing a natural affinity for Gregory's movement style: an unusual fusion of lyricism and dynamic edge. The physicality of partnering motifs is a powerful element here, as is the transference of movement from dancer to dancer so that a flow of energy is always maintained. Excellent lighting (Matt Miller) enhanced this atmospheric work and the dancers really got into it, garnering well-deserved enthusiasm from the audience. Watch a bit of Gregory's work for Hubbard Street 2 here.
In September 2013 I had the pleasure of watching Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre in rehearsal, but tonight was my first opportunity to see them in performance: they danced Transparent Walls and it was just about perfect in every respect. Aleksandra Vrebalov's marvelous score laid the groundwork for the strikingly handsome choreography, a gorgeously rich movement vocabulary exploring visual polyphony with remarkable clarity. With port de bras sometimes suggesting flight, the dancers come and go from the lit space into the shadows; the simple act of walking takes on an air of mysterious destiny. Amidst the ever- shifting patterns of the ensemble, moments of tenderness emerge imbuing the active geometry of the piece with a poetic calm. Such contrasts, along with the overall sweep of the choreography, kept me thoroughly engrossed throughout the piece. The excellent dancers all deserve to be mentioned: Alexandra Berger, Ann Chiaverini, John Eirich, Emily Gayeski, Elisa Osborne, Ned Sturgis, Samuel Swanton, and Tim Ward.
LeeSaar The Company closed the evening with Princes Crocodile, an all-female ensemble work marking the transition from girlishness to womanhood. Very finely danced, this piece weaves solos into group passages; moments of silence and stillness emerge and a sense of the stylized is sometimes erased by overt sensuality. The girls cast shadows on the wall, adding another visual aspect. Princes Crocodile has a ritualistic feel and the dancers did a fine job with it.