~ Author: Oberon
Tuesday April 17th, 2018 - Celebrating their 50th anniversary, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company are at The Joyce this week, premiering Lar's newest ballet and performing masterworks from the choreographer's impressive catalog.
This evening's program featured The Legend of Ten (2010), danced by the Martha Graham Dance Company, the world premiere of Lar's Something About Night, and the 2000 Lubovitch ballet Men’s Stories: A Concerto in Ruin.
Back in November, photographer Nir Arieli and I watched Lar Lubovitch and Kate Skarpetowska putting the Martha Graham dancers thru their paces at a rehearsal of Legend of Ten; Lar was demonstrating, full of energy and enthusiasm. The Graham Company performed this ballet to great applause at City Center last week and now they have brought their rendering of it down to The Joyce to fête the choreographer on this celebratory evening. They gave a knockout performance.
Above: from Legend of Ten, dancers from the Martha Graham Dance Company; photo by Melissa Sherwood
The cast this evening at The Joyce was largely the same as that of the City Center performance, but Anne O'Donnell and Lloyd Mayor took on the ballet's pas de deux. This unusual duet is episodic: the two dancers come and go, interrupted by passages for the ensemble. Maintaining the atmosphere is key, and Anne and Lloyd were superb: lyrical and romantic, with a beautiful sense of musicality in their phrasing and partnering.
In my view, Legend somehow fit better in The Joyce space than at City Center; it felt - for all its spaciousness of movement - more intimate tonight, and the lighting seemed more atmospheric. Legend of Ten is a real masterpiece, and everyone taking part in it this evening looked marvelous: Charlotte Landreau, Leslie Andrea Williams (loved the hinge!), So Young An, Laurel Dalley Smith, Marzia Memoli, Ben Schultz, Lorenzo Pagano, and Ari Mayzick. I sincerely hope the Graham Company will keep this piece in their active repertory: it suits them to perfection.
Above: from Something About Night, photo by Nan Melville
Lar Lubovitch's newest creation, Something About Night, is set to Schubert songs for male chorus. A quintet of dancers awaken from slumber. Slowly they rise and commence a gentle flow of movement, with tranquil lifts. An ecstatic pose marks the start of a pas de deux for Lubovitch muse Nicole Corea and her partner, Tobin Del Cuore. Their duet is illumined by fluent port de bras, their partnership deeply expressive.
Above: from Something About Night, with Belinda McGuire and Brett Perry in the foreground; photo by Justin Chao
A solo danced by Brett Perry begins in silence, moving thru a series of turns and still poses; yet again, the arms and hands have a resonant beauty. Mr. Perry is a naturally gifted mover and communicator. Interestingly, when he is not performing, he retreats to a farm in Idaho where he works.
Something About Night continues with a pas de trois and a pas de quatre, Belinda McGuire and Barton Cowperthwaite joining Ms. Corea and Mssrs. Del Cuore and Perry. The overall effect of this nocturnal ballet dreamy, with very subtle hints of anxiousness woven in.
Above: from Men's Stories, photo by Nan Melville
Lar Lubovitch's Men's Stories is a dawn-of-the-21st-century classic. In this gathering of nine tail-coated men in a smoky subterranean lair, all manner of masculine traits and behaviors are explored, from tenderness to bitchiness, lusty camaraderie to uneasy introspection.
Scott Marshall's musical montage ranges from blues, chant, doo-wop, electronic, Mozart, industrial, Bach, Nina Simone, whistling, a drowning piano - and a sooty violin - to a father telling his son about the birds and the bees. Ending the first section, the irresistible 'Ciribiribin' is heard in a reverberant distortion.
The ballet comes to a brilliant finish, but then goes on. Over time, I have become less enamoured of the concluding movement of this dancework, in which a puppet is introduced: everyboy commencing on his own 'man's story'. It's lost its charm, at least for me.
But what counts for everything in this Lubovitch masterpiece is the non-stop, demanding choreography and the mixture of wit and devastation, of back-slapping camaraderie and isolated insecurity. When danced as it was tonight, nothing compares.
Brilliant - absolutely brilliant - solo work from Jonathan Emanuell Alsberry, Reed Luplau, Anthony Bocconi, and Barton Cowperthwaite dazzled the crowd, winning each dancer a burst of screams and applause as heh stepped forward for a bow at the end. Completing the ensemble, and dancing with flair, were Colin Fuller, Matthew McLaughlin, Brett Perry, and Lukasz Zięba. In a particularly moving characterization, Benjamin Holliday Wardell played the éminence grise of the community with a mix of world-weariness, vanity, and disdain for the young upstarts surrounding him: his 'man's story' would likely be the most fascinating of all.
Bravos all round: when this charismatic collective were joined during the curtain calls by Lar Lubovitch himself, the house went wild.
~ Oberon