<\/p>\n
By Rachel Straus<\/p>\n
When the pressure is on to be romantic, delivering the goods is a challenge. The week before Valentine\u2019s Day, four dance events intentionally (and unintentionally) dabbled in matters of the heart. \u00a0<\/span>Merce Cunningham\u2019s 1998 Pond Way<\/em>\u2014as filmed by Charles Atlas\u2014was surprisingly the most romantic. (It was screened at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on February 7\u00a0as part of \u201cBAC Flicks: Mondays with Merce<\/em>.”)<\/span><\/p>\n Dressed in Scheherazade<\/em>-meets-minimalist costumes (by Suzanne Gallo), the dancers circumnavigated each other <\/span>with the aplomb and gentleness of amphibious courtiers. Roy Lichtenstein’s pointillist\u00a0Landscape with a Boat <\/em>served as the backdrop and Brian Eno’s\u00a0New Ikebukkuro (For 3 CD Players)<\/em> proved subtle and serene. As Banu Ogan traversed the length of the downstage space, a male dancer gently stopped her. Cunningham\u2019s reference to The Rose Adagio<\/em> in Sleeping Beauty<\/em> is unmistakable. But instead of being given a flower and striking a virtuoso balance on pointe (as is the case in Beauty<\/em>), Ogan was neither held nor presented. One by one, a male dancer appeared, placed his palm on a different part of her body, and then evaporated into the wings. Each touch was delicate, almost unobtrusive, like a soft breeze that comes out of nowhere and gives one pause.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Mark Morris is not known for his high-flown treatment of heterosexual love. His 2007 Romeo and Juliet<\/em> (to Prokofiev\u2019s original score with a happy ending) lacked romantic fire. In his choreography for John Adams\u2019 Nixon in China<\/em> (1987), which is making its Metropolitan Opera House debut (and which I saw on February 12), Morris reinterpreted the propagandist Chinese ballet The Red Detachment of Women<\/em> (1964). Under Peter Sellers\u2019 direction, Morris choreographed a ballet within a ballet in which President Nixon (James Maddalena) and Mrs. Nixon (Janis Kelly) leave their opera house seats and become involved in the ballet\u2019s action: A peasant girl (Haruno Yamazaki) is whipped to a pulp, then given the Little Red Book<\/em>. She becomes a rifle-wielding revolutionary comrade. In Act III, she dances with a soldier (Kanji Segawa), once a \u201cdecadent\u201d in a European white suit.<\/p>\n Their final pas de deux<\/em> occurs behind the Nixons (Pat and Richard) and the Tse-Tungs (Mr. and Mrs. Mao), as performed by Robert Brubaker and Kathleen Kim. The singers describe their early years in which sex and love played a greater part in their lives. The fact that Peter Sellers obstructs Morris\u2019 choreography\u2014placing the formidable dancers behind six beds and five singers\u2014says a lot about Sellers\u2019 opinion of Morris\u2019s duet, <\/em>which does little to support the lyrics about love and loss.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Martha Graham wasn\u2019t exactly a romantic, but she sure knew how to choreograph sex. In preparation for the Martha Graham Dance Company\u2019s 85th<\/sup> season at New York\u2019s Rose Theater (March 15-20), the troupe presented their second informal showing on February 9 at DANY Studios. Graham dancers excel in staring each other down with an intensity of gaze only a bull could countenance. When Tadej Brdnik and Xiaochuan Xie locked eyes during an excerpt from Robert Wilson\u2019s Snow on the Mesa<\/em> (1995), it became clear that their relationship was not the PG variety. That said neither Mesa<\/em> nor these dancers’ interpretations were overwrought. Brdnik and Xie\u2019s physical beauty and technical command will make this Wilson ballet worth seeing. The other excerpts presented included Graham\u2019s Appalachian Spring<\/em> (1944),<\/em> Cave of the Heart<\/em> (1947), and Deaths and Entrances<\/em> (1943)\u2014as well as Bulareyang Pagarlava\u2019s work in progress, based on Deaths<\/em>. It is neither sexy nor romantic. It seems to poke fun at Graham\u2019s seriousness.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Seriousness and silliness shared equal billing at Joe\u2019s Pub on February 11, with the kickoff of Dancemopolitan\u2019s 2011 season. Called \u00a0\u201cKyle Abraham and Friends: Heartbreaks and Homies,” the cabaret-style event\u00a0\u00a0(produced by DanceNOW [NYC])\u00a0featured seven works by Kyle Abraham and one by three guest choreographers: David Dorfman, Faye Driscoll, and Alex Escalante. On the Pub\u2019s kitchen-size stage, the costuming placed the dances squarely in the retro past. Hot pants prevailed. Afros and beards were in the house. However, when Abraham began short-circuiting his body to the music of Love Me<\/em> by Sam Cooke\u2014a pioneer of soul music who was shot dead at the height of his career\u2014the evening lost its playful tone.<\/p>\n Like an electric switch, Abraham altered his mood. This fast-firing, dancer-actor expressed heartbreak, rage, innocence, bawdiness in moment-to-moment slices of bodily action.\u00a0Abraham also shape shifted into a lover because \u201cHeartbreak and Homies\u201d was made with Valentine\u2019s Day in mind. Abraham intermittently mingled among the audience (and in his last solo he curled up in some of their laps). Upon returning to the stage, Abraham flicked his emotional switch down to a dark place: He silently wailed. His body sputtered. It was shocking, its pathos mesmerizing.<\/p>\n Less shocking but equal absorbing was Alex Escalante\u2019s solo about getting dumped via cell phone. As the dancer repeatedly mouthed his disappointment into a microphone, his words looped back into the sound system. An echo chamber of voices chaotically intermingled, in which \u00a0Escalante\u2019s laments, his conversation with his lover, and the crooning lyrics of Kiss and Say Goodbye <\/em>by the Manhattans developed a three-way conversation. At the work\u2019s beginning, Escalante asked the audience: Have you ever been in a relationship that had a total communication breakdown?<\/p>\n Broken down by too many voices, Escalante eventually staggered away from the microphone. His gait resembled a boozer’s drawl. He never fell down. Any amateur who loosened their limbs like Escalante\u2019s would be on the floor, nursing his knees, crying for help.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n