Saturday May 2nd, 2015 - HATCH: The Presenting Series at Jennifer Muller/The Works Studio. This on-going series of dance performances features works by independent choreographers of varying backgrounds and styles. Ms. Muller provides the space and support for these danceworks to be presented in a congenial setting.
This evening's performance opened with Satomi Itohara's duet Unknown. Ms. Itohara chose her music wisely: Andre Previn's contemporary classic 'Vocalise'. To this luminous score, the choreographer and her partner Takeshi Ohashi danced a pas de deux that matched the music in beauty and expressiveness. The movement is fluid and the dancers showed a fine rapport. Mr. Ohashi is tall and muscular, but he has a lyrical quality well-suited to the style. The duet featured some unusual and intricate partnering motifs which the couple accomplished smoothly. Both as a choreographer and dancer, Ms. Itohara made a lovely impression; at the end of the programme, she appeared again, in a duet created by Mr. Ohashi. You can watch a bit of Satomi and Takeshi rehearsing Unknown here.
M.A.K Dance Company then took over the space: a vibrant quartet of women clad in colorful body tights, they performed She, choreographed by Monifa Kincaid and set to the very appealing vocals of Laura Mvula. This dance is a celebration of feminine vitality, with a sense of assured power and joy. The four dancers made this piece such a pleasure to watch: the choreography keeps multiple things happening at the same time so that the eye is constantly drawn to one dancer and then to another. Beautiful use of port de bras throughout. The second, slower movement centered on a duet of sisterhood, with phrases that are alternately spacious and intimate. This is dancing to elevate the spirit.
Choreographer Juri Nishio then appeared in a satiny white gown to dance Nanna, Gunjo - and excerpt from invisible truth. The dancer drew us immediately into a world of silent poetry with her intense inwardness, her arms and hands moving almost imperceptibly as the dance begins. Continuing in silence, Ms. Nishio seemed to draw on profound emotions to sustain a mystical connection to nature; then birdsong and rushing water enter our consciousness. The dancer's movements veer from stillness to swiftness and back, and she gently manipulates her virginal skirt, making it part of the ritual. Ms. Nishio is a dancer of rare artistic depth, and her performance reached me on cosmic level: a kindred soul.
MMC, choreographed by Maho Suiso Ogawa for SUISO Co, was performed by Ms. Ogawa and Laura Neese. A projector has been set up, and as Ms. Neese begins an angular dance in place, Ms. Ogawa offered an audience member the chance to 'pick a card'. When fed into the projector, the card projects an image of a dancer in a certain position which will mark the beginning of the next solo. The two girls, wonderfully subtle and taking themselves quite seriously, alternately dance and offer the next card. This progressed in silence, the dancing often calling for sustained balances and quirky improv, enhanced by the shadows the two girls cast on the floor. Fragments of speech (in Japanese?) and the sound of a barking dog add another layer of wry speculation to the piece. Maho and Laura finally dance together, drawing this piece - which is both entertaining and curious - to a close.
Jazz Roots Dance Company performed a classic-style jazz ensemble work named for The Temptations soul hit Papa was a Rolling Stone. The ten dancers enter one-by-one and are soon rocking the space with their leaps, turns and kicks. They all wear white costumes with long fringe, and as the works sails on the room seems too small to contain them. Each and every dancer had a chance to shine, and shine they did. Choreographed by Sue Samuels, this retro piece had the audience screaming as the energetic dancers took their bows.
In the closing work, choreographer Takeshi Ohashi's Dream again drew on his partnership with Satomi Itohara. Named for the dreamy John Cage piece that accompanies it, this duet displays aspects of sleep and its often restless mystery. Stillness and agitation alternate as the dream summons up varying visions. As in the evening's opening number, Takeshi and Satomi show an affinity for complex partnering, and at one point Takeshi neatly executes a breakdance phrase.
For variety of music and mood, and for inspired individual performances, the evening was very worthwhile. Again, kudos to Jennifer Muller and all that she does for the dance world.