Above: Anna Sokolow
Sunday December 7th, 2014 matinee - This was the first time I've ever had to leave a performance due to atmospheric conditions inside the theater. It seems someone had switched on the air conditioning on an already chilly day, making it unpleasantly cold at the 14th Street Y for today's matinee offering of Anna Sokolow's works. We kept our coats on (and my companion luckily had a hat and gloves; I didn't) but by the end of the programme's first half we were chilled to the bone. We felt we had no alternative than to leave, emerging into a bitterly cold wind: the outdoor temperature had dropped considerably while we were inside.
I admired the perseverance of the dancers who were bare-footed, and of the pianist who was wearing a pair of knit gloves. This was a case of 'the show must go on' and I did regret our decision to leave, since I have a great interest in Sokolow's work and in the individual dancers who were performing.
When we arrived, the pianist Amir Khosrowpour was valiantly improvising: his music-making was a boon to the performance and helped to appease the discomforting situation. Sokolow artistic director Jim May welcomed the large crowd and apologized for the frigid conditions.
PRELUDES (1984) features George Gershwin's Three Preludes plus two additional songs by the composer which Mr. Khosrowpour played deftly. The dancers, as at an after-hours club, smoke and flirt, and between dances they huddle around the pianist. The piece has a ballroom-y feel, with a touch of tango. After some sultry innuendos in the first prelude, the men - Davd Glista, Richard Scandola, Gregory Youdan, and Luis Gabriel Zaragoza - have a lively quartet, followed by gossip-girl scene for the ladies - Eleanor Bunker, Samantha Gerach, Lauren Naslund, and Francesca Todesco. The dancers waltz, at first alone and then finding their partners. Then all are drawn back to the piano-player as the lights go out.
For HOMAGE TO EDGAR ALLAN POE (1993), Mr. Khosrowpour plays Rachmaninoff while Jim May recites passages from the poet's works. The dancers first appear in an entwined cluster. This dissolves into a flowing pattern of fleeting individual, duo, and ensemble passages, and one striking moment when the dancers all rush on and begin to twirl rapidly in place, as if possessed. Motifs of lament and of a hope of escape from some nightmarish doom are threaded in: arms are raised heavenward in supplication and in a brilliant moment the solitary Luis Gabriel Zaragoza collapses into darkness.
The Raven is a solo danced by Greg Youdan in which the expressive dancer seeks, panics, is cast down only to rise again before finally succumbing to despair; the solo ends in a frozen pose of human isolation. Annabelle Lee, a hauntingly lyrical duet danced by Lucy Sydel and David Glista, begins with a feeling of gentle romance and includes a sustained, poetic lift; but death triumphs over love, and the dancers - just inches away from us - beautifully captured the tenderness of parting forever.
I was sorry to miss FRIDA (1997) a multi-media tribute to Sokolow's artist-friend, and most particularly to see Ms. Naslund and Mr. Zaragoza in the main roles. Hopefully there will be another opportunity soon.