Oberon's Grove: Rehearsing: Lydia Johnson Dance

Above: Nir Arieli's rehearsal photo from the final moments of Lydia Johnson's new creation This, and my heart beside…

Author: Oberon

Lydia Johnson Dance will be at New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, on June 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, 2017. The performances are at 7:30 PM each evening. Tickets here.

Two new works choreographed by Lydia Johnson will be presented: Trio Sonatas, to music of Georg Friedrich Handel, and This, and my heart beside…, inspired by Emily Dickinson's poem "It's All I Have to Bring Today" and set to music by Marc Mellits and Philip Glass. Completing the program will be a revival of Lydia's 2012 ballet for five women, Crossings By River, to music by Osvaldo Golijov, and Giving Way, returning from last season, with music by Mellits and Golijov.

On Friday June 16th, Lydia invited photographer Nir Arieli and me to her rehearsal at the Ballet Hispanico studios. Giving Way was being run when we arrived, and here are some of Nir's images from that work.

Click on each photo to enlarge.

Laura DiOrio

Brynt Beitman

Blake Hennessy-York and Brynt Beitman

Blake and Brynt

Above: Lydia with Sarah Pon, who will be dancing in Giving Way at NYLA, giving notes

After a brief respite, the large ensemble involved in This, and my heart beside… took their places and I got to see this moving and disturbingly beautiful work in a full run-thru.

Here is the Emily Dickinson poem from which the ballet's title is derived:

"It's all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget
Someone the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell."

The ballet is built around three couples, each of them at a different stage in their relationship:

MinSeon Kim and Chazz Fenner-McBride, observed by the ensemble...

...Mary Beth Hansohn and Peter Chursin...

...and Daniel Pigliavento and Katie Martin-Lohiya.

Dona Wiley, Hope K Ruth, Blair Reavis-Tyler, and Lauren Treat form the ensemble for this poetic work, and also appearing will be Sara Spangler, a very young dancer who was not at today's rehearsal.

This, and my heart beside... opens with a sort of prologue set to a Marc Mellits score which serves to set the stage for the drama which will unfold. Above: Dona Wiley, and Katie Martin-Lohiya (seated).

Lydia then turns to one of Philip Glass's most haunting works, from his Etudes, Book 2: No 17, for the unfolding of the ballet. I won't give away too much about the piece - Nir's photos will say more than words can express - but this is a dancework which grasps the heart and never lets go.

Here is This, and my heart beside... in rehearsal: