Above: from Lydia Johnson's NIGHT OF THE FLYING HORSES; photo by Julie Lemberger
~ Author: Oberon
Sunday November 12th, 2023 matinee - LYDIA JOHNSON DANCE presenting an engaging program of three danceworks at the Martha Graham Studio Theatre at Westbeth. Once the homespace of Merce Cunningham - and now of the spectacular dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company - this spacious studio is where Lydia Johnson did some of her earliest work. The audience seemed wonderfully attentive, and all afternoon the dancing was enhanced by the atmospheric lighting designs of Renée Molina.
A premiere opened the performance: CHAPTERS, a work in five movements featuring music by four composers. The ballet's first three sections are duets; the first is set to music by William Duckworth and was danced by MinSeon Kim and Arieh Bates-Vinueza. To sparkling music, the couple brought light-filled lyricism to their polished dancing.
A one-note heartbeat musical motif brought forth Laura DiOrio and Michael Miles, dancing a poetic, intimate duet to music by Johan Lindvall, Soulful phrases from the cello summoned expressive nuances from these finely-matched dancers.
Another Duckworth score inspires two charismatic dancers - Cara McManus and MaliQ Williams - in their intense duet. Tension develops when the woman has fleeting second thoughts, evading the man's gentle persistence. At the end of the ballet, they seem to have found common ground.
The six afore-mentioned dancers are now joined by Catherine Gurr, Emily Sarkissian, Amanda Egan, and Danielle Goodman in an ensemble section to music by Christopher Dennis Coleman. Rich cello phrases sustain the dancers, who strike evocative poses and whose facial expressions reveal individual emotions. A male trio has a gestural quality.
A solo by MinSeon Kim to music by J T Peterson opens the final movement. Here, the couples from the first movement's duets reappear, and their relationships are re-defined. Especially lovely here was the Kim/Bates-Vinueza duo: MinSeon's eyes expressed her feelings to perfection, with Arieh her elegant, astute partner. Their concentration in bringing the music to life was truly engaging.
After a brief pause, a revival of Lydia Johnson's 2013 "red" ballet to a luminous score by Osvaldo Golijov, NIGHT OF THE FLYING HORSES, made its welcome return to the repertory. The music, which veers from ethereal to dynamic, evoked compelling dancing from the cast of seven: Laura DiOrio, MinSeon Kim, Amanda Egan, Cara McManus, MaliQ Williams, Quinton Guthier, and Arieh Bates-Vinueza.
Gorgeously lit by Ms. Molina, the ballet's opening music recalls the magical realm of the elves as depicted by Howard Shore in his film score for LORD OF THE RINGS: music with an ecstatic, heavenly quality. Amanda Egan has an evocative solo that has a dreamy feeling, and MinSeon KIm and Quinton Guthier formed a persuasive partnership in their duet. Mr. Guthier, new to the Company, made an outstanding impression throughout the piece.
Crossing the stage in a lively diagonals, the dancers execute springy barrel turns as the music accelerates. Michael Miles and Cara McManus share a passage - Ms. McManus is a striking beauty whose musicality and quiet intensity are captivating - and Arieh Bates-Vinueza and Amanda Egan each have an opportunity to shine as the music glides along.
Laura DiOrio and MaliQ Williams now transport us with the ballet's central adagio; it starts with the forlorn sound of a pan pipe: a lament evoking a lost, ancient world where Nature was embraced rather than destroyed. The haunting theme on the aria "Je crois entendre encore" from Bizet's THE PEARL FISHERS is subtly woven in. The music turns sultry, the cello and bass sending chills up the spine. The two dancers make the music palpably visual with their intense yet poetic partnering. The other couples join.
Then, lights up! What feels like an animated finale springs to life, the men swirling the women about with abandon. But this is a false finish, for a slow coda follows, with Ms. Kim and Mr. Quinton again impressing us with their dedicated partnership.
Prior to the pandemic, artist Laura Lou Levy had commissioned a ballet from Ms. Johnson to honor the memory of her son, the young pianist Eli Levy Utterback. Premiered in 2022, the work is called simply FOR ELI. Piano pieces by Frédéric Chopin, whose music the aspiring pianist loved to play, set the mood for one of Lydia Johnson's most poignant works.
Michael Miles has the principal role here; Michael is one of those dancers who has an inner light which illuminates his every move and expression. He's never theatrical, but rather there is a feeling of sincerity in everything he does: a young man dancing because this is his calling.
Michael's duet with MaliQ Williams is the heart of the ballet. MaliQ seems like a consoling angel as he tenderly tries to inspire Michael to summon the strength to go on living. But it's to no avail; the two dancers huddle down, with MaliQ sheltering Michael in an enveloping embrace.
Earlier, Catherine Gurr's ballet-based style (photo above by Julie Lemberger) was evident in her beautiful port de bras and expressive hands as she performed a touching solo expressing maternal grief. She is joined by Mlles. DiOrio, Kim, Egan, Sarkissian, and McManus in stylized expressions of mourning, sometimes seated on or kneeling by chairs.
Mr. Bates-Vinueza, a handsome presence among the seated mourners in work's opening scene, now re-joins the others for the concluding étude, which seems to end as the dancers strike a balletic final pose. But then they quickly move into a comradely circle from which Mr. Miles slowly steps away. leaving an empty space in the community which will be impossible to fill. The light slowly fades away.
As so often happens in Lydia's work, there were many fleeting moments in which her dancers connect with one another as human beings rather than simply as performers. One such priceless encounter came when Emily Sarkissian and Laura DiOrio briefly crossed paths during an animated passage in the Chopin piece. They exchanged the subtlest of smiles, as if reassuring one another. It is such moments that make dance more than just entertainment: our common humanity is reaffirmed. And Lydia Johnson is so very good at doing just that.
UPDATE: photos by Steven Pisano from this performance may be viewed here.
~ Oberon