Friday June 19th, 2015 - I'd never been to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Theatre before. It's a very nice venue for dance, with a proscenium stage and amphitheater seating, and tonight Roschman Dance (new to me) presented two works there, along with "Saakasu", choreographed by Omar Roman de Jesus.
Roschman Dance's 2012 work, "Learning To Fold", opened the evening. Danced to music by Ethel, this piece showed the Roschman dancers to advantage with choreography that looks fresh and spacious. The six white-and-blue clad dancers shared a natural affinity for the sheer joy of movement. Aside from brief moments of reflection, the work is mostly a swirl of activity as the dancers come and go, connecting with one another in fleeting partnerships before sweeping onward. A stylized unison passage to the plucking of strings and a trio for the three women stood out, but for the most part "Learning To Fold" kept up its forward impetus: celebratory dance, performed with sincerity.
Omar Roman De Jesus, who performs with Parsons Dance, offered "Saakasu" ('Circus' in Japanese); earlier in the week photographer Travis Magee and I had dropped in at Omar's rehearsal where his Parsons colleagues Ian Spring, Geena Pacareu Rijnsburger, and Eoghan Dillon along with a lively ensemble of young dancers were putting finishing touches on "Saakasu".
Seen onstage, with its sexy costuming and dramatic lighting, "Saakasu" makes a vivid impression. It opens with Ian Spring alone onstage. In his seasons with Parsons Dance, Ian has developed from an energetic boy-next-door into a charismatic dancer of the first order: one of New York's finest. Wearing only a dance belt, a ruffled collar, and powdered hair, Ian takes on the timeless persona of the traveling player: visions of old Japanese theatre, the commedia dell'arte, and the tragic Pagliaccio smearing on his white greasepaint are evoked.
The music of a kozmic hurdy-gurdy sets the mood; Ian, in a pool of light, emits a profound scream: his inner animal wants to emerge. Eoghan Dillon and two girls have a stylized trio; more screams, and the full ensemble take the stage with the wary eageress of animals who have escaped their cages. Ian and Zoey Anderson have a sensuous duet to a piano theme, and then the tribe return, stomping their feet and slapping their thighs in a primitive ritual.
Ian crosses the stage singing a famous circus song. The music goes big and industrial; he and Geena have a duet. Meanwhile Eoghan has been crawling among the savage dancers and he finally finds a means of escape, though he simply ends up running in place since nightmares rarely allow for escape.
The dancers rush about in a circle, leaping. Things slow to near stillness. Debussy's immortal "Clair de lune" is heard as Ian dances a compelling solo with very subtle images of Nijinsky's faune woven in. This reverie ends as the ensemble re-enter, stamping their feet. They shimmy, shake, and exalt around Ian, lifting their arms to summon some pagan god. They hit the floor as the music goes pensive, only to rise again and collectively stomp upstage as silence and darkness fall.
I wasn't familiar with Omar Roman de Jesus's choreographic background, but with "Saakasu" he's really onto something: vivid in its theatricality and demanding of the dancers in terms of both technique and expression, it's a piece to be seen again. The audience reacted with shouts of enthusiasm.
Contrast is a valuable asset in a mixed program of dance and so, after the interval, Sean Roschman's "Crooked Creek" (a world premiere) was a fine counterpoise to the large-scale and darkly sexy de Jesus work. Set to an 'Americana' score, Roschman Dance's latest work seems on the surface a simple presentation of young people at a dance in a rural community, maybe in the inter-war years of the 20th century. Yet there is an underlying sense of dread, as if something is not quite right.
Three couples waltz to an innocent, hummed tune, and then the fiddle summons up a square dance. A woman is abandoned by her partner; she lingers to watch another couple's duet. Agitated passages follow: a trio of women and an in-sync duet for two girls; always there is a sense of being observed.
Cascades of fiddling urge the dancers onward: various pairings and shifting solo moments, stillness offset by activity. A buzzing musical motif, and one of the girls collapses as if infected; her sad solo evolves to a trio for the women, and then to a pas de quatre for two couples. The tempo picks up for a duet, then the sound of the cello sets up a solo for one of the women. The dancers rush about as if possessed before collapsing, and the lights go out. But in an postlude, one woman sits up, unsure of what has happened. Her questioning gaze is held as a final darkness falls.
Seeing a new Company, it's perhaps unfair to single out a particular dancer: but in the two Roschman works I was especially impressed by Christian Deluna-Zuno, a Mexican guy with a high-flying extension and a handsome stage presence.