{"id":7859,"date":"2012-10-17T20:42:04","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T00:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=7859"},"modified":"2012-11-27T12:55:58","modified_gmt":"2012-11-27T16:55:58","slug":"a-recap-of-three-fall-for-dance-festival-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=7859","title":{"rendered":"Fall for Dance Festival: Recapping Program 1, 2 and 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rachel Straus<\/p>\n

The seventh annual Fall For Dance Festival came to a meaty close on October 13.\u00a0 Program five at New York\u2019s City Center trafficked in high testosterone, thanks to China\u2019s LPD-Laboratory Dance Project\u2019s No Comment<\/em> (2002) and Yaron Lifschitz\u2019s Circa<\/em> (2009), which is also the name of the Australian acrobatic troupe. In both works the body was treated like a battering ram.<\/p>\n

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Circa by Justin Nicholas Atmosphere Photography<\/p><\/div>\n

In Circa<\/em>, the performers used not only their fellow artists\u2019 thighs and shoulders, but also their faces, as launching pads for balancing in midair and jettisoning across the space like Evel Knievel. In No Comment<\/em>, the men continually fell to the floor, as though blown down by an invisible hammer. As a finale, they stripped to their waists to reveal their glistening muscular torsos. Like fight club winners, they took their bows. But their message\u2014sex objects who pulverize themselves are cool\u2014confounded me.<\/p>\n

Visions of aggression and angst trumped visions of cooperation and kindliness in the three FFD programs of 12 dances from 12 international and national-based companies seen on September 28 and 30, and October 13. Perhaps the programming, spearheaded by artistic advisor Stanford Makishi, not only represented his personal preferences, but also reflected the times. The majority of the works were made in the past four years, and only two dated before 2002. This decade hasn\u2019t been an easy ride; the dances reflects that.<\/p>\n

The festival\u2019s first program ended with Martha Graham\u2019s Chronicle<\/em>, which was made in response to rising European fascism before World War II. The first section of Graham\u2019s 1936 work surprisingly echoed the last work in the festival:\u00a0Deseo Y Conciencia<\/em> (2011). In D<\/em>eseo<\/em>, flamenco choreographer-performer Maria Pag\u00e9s\u00a0donned a red costume that transformed into a shroud. Likewise, the gargantuan red underskirt worn by Blakeley White-Mcguire in Chronicle<\/em> possessed the same import. Both women became symbols of mourning, evoking through their blood-red cloaks a fraught world.<\/p>\n

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Maria Pages. Photo by David Ruano<\/p><\/div>\n

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Blakeley White-McGuire. Photo by Michele Ballantini<\/p><\/div>\n

The two most ambitious works, of the 12 viewed, were Pam Tamowitz\u2019s Fortune<\/em> (2011) and Christopher Wheeldon\u2019s Five Movements, Three Repeats <\/em> (2012). Both tendered subtlety, nuance and mystery. (Full disclosure: Fortune<\/em> was choreographed on the Juilliard School dancers and I work at Juilliard.) In Fortune<\/em>, Tamowitz set 21 dancers, costumed in hot pink and red unitards, against a field of greenish yellow. Here was a happy Mark Rothko painting. Though Tamowitz\u2019s movement vocabulary is clearly inspired by Merce Cunningham\u2019s, she doesn’t ignore the music as was Cunningham’s way. Tamowitz’s sharply sculptural patterning, full of pregnant pauses, reflected Charles Wuorinen\u2019s stop and go\u00a0Fortune<\/em> (performed by a quartet Juilliard School musicians). In response to Wuorinen\u2019s abrupt shifts in sounds, which instantly dissolve as though they never happened, Tamowitz evokes mini narratives, some absurd, others resonant of a city life, where pedestrians walk with laser-eye certainty.<\/p>\n

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Juilliard Dancers in "Fortune." Photo by Rosalie O'Connor<\/p><\/div>\n

Also of note was Christopher Wheeldon\u2019s\u00a0Five Movements, Three Repeats<\/em>, which was made for Fangi-Yi Sheu & Artists. Sheu, a former Graham dancer born and trained in Taiwan, is now based in New York. She is one of the great performers of our time. Her guests were none other than Wheeldon\u2019s former colleagues at New York City Ballet: Tyler Angle, Craig Hall and Wendy Whelan. To a recording of Max Richter\u2019sMEMORYHOUSE<\/em> and Otis Clyde\u2019s\u00a0The Bitter Earth\/On the Nature of Daylight<\/em>, Wheeldon didn\u2019t treat Sheu as some modern dance oddity among the City Ballet dancers.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of every other section of\u00a0Five Movements<\/em>, Three Repeats<\/em>, Sheu undulated her spine like a fern seeking light. Her pliable torso work was best picked up in Hall\u2019s simultanesously-occurring solo that spiraled into the floor. Later on, Sheu and Hall folded their limbs into each other. Their duet featured a melding of their bodies, and organically blended central aspects of their different technical training (Sheu\u2019s focuses on weight, Hall\u2019s on ethereality).<\/p>\n

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Ms. Sheu and Mr. Hall. Photo by Erin Baiano<\/p><\/div>\n

Though Sheu\u2019s legwork is akin to the arrow-like esthetic favored by ballet choreographers, Wheeldon didn\u2019t devolve to his usual histrionics: over-choreographing women\u2019s leg extensions in the pas de deux. Consequently, Sheu did not become a human gumby. Instead, she partnered Hall’s weight as much as Hall partnered her’s. Wheeldon’s venture into making work for a modern-trained dancer is heartily welcome. The task seems to stretch him instead of over-stretching his female collaborators.<\/p>\n