With the same name as the dance, a soft note begins from Ravel’s Bolero:
The dancers begin on stage in a line wearing matching silver body suits. Their movement is sharp but contained and the small phrases begin to repeat. As they move in a constant pace from one position to the next, sometimes in unison, sometimes in canon, each dancer spends a moment under a soft light to perform a solo corresponding to the delicate melody of a single instrument.
Credit: Basil Childers
The movement increases steadily as the smaller jumps become leaps while the direction and intention of the movements become more intense. They form clumps of unison and the proximity of their expansiveness escalate the atmosphere. After circling around a single frequently replaced dancer in the center performing a solo, the music grows even louder, keeping with the steady beat.
All the while, the backdrop for the piece has slowly shifted along with the music. The machine like movement within the dance becomes even more prominent as Harry Feiner’s set evokes images of futuristic contraptions. Although such images might suggest fear of the automated unknown, the beautiful music gives it a very lighthearted feel.
Credit: http://www.harryfeinertheatredesign.com/
The music grows to its loudest movement and the dancers begin to leap, throw and turn in unison and within extreme proximity as the instruments come together as well. The movement is no longer recognizable as the same forms from the beginning. With a final crash of cymbals and a return to the beginning line, the dancers strike their final pose, each within a different part of the previous phrases and the backdrop ends depicting long shadows falling behind a line of pillars.
Credit: http://www.harryfeinertheatredesign.com/
I found this to be an incredibly exciting dance and one that is simple yet riveting, much like a machine that one can explore to try and understand how it is put together. An interesting aspect of the dance is that the perspective of ‘futuristic machinery’ is from the beginning of the 20th century and because of this, the futuristic qualities are really more historic.
Did you notice the set changing and if so, at what point?
Do you feel as though the futurism is only believable within the context of the 20th century or is it applicable for today?
Does this dance speak of the future or of the past, or does it speak effectively of both?
If you were a small part within a large machine, what part would you be?
January 23rd, 8:00pm
Joyce Theater
New York City, New York
The following is a paper I wrote for a ballet class about the Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble performance at Vassar. So, the format is very different. It includes a healthy dose of criticism.
Dance Theatre of Harlem was founded in 1969. Inspired by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook founded the company to give the low-income community of Harlem, New York City, a chance to participate in the world of ballet and modern dance. The company has not been active since 2004 where it was put on ‘hiatus’ but the DTH Ensemble, which is made up of older students who are not quite a part of the company, has begun a national tour to commemorate it’s 40th Anniversary. The tour show is an ‘interactive performance’ featuring behind the scenes demonstrations and a Question and Answer segment. At this particular performance, Virginia Johnson, who will take over as director of DTH next year, was in attendance. The performance was beautiful but also strangely awkward. It is highly unlikely that this was the first time the soon-to-be director has watched the ensemble perform but many of the dancers seemed constrained, nervous and unable to really open up to perform. The technique was there but the smiles were a little too forced and the dancers were a little too fearful of their current director, giving the entire performance a very odd feel. However, the repertoire of The Joplin Dances, Fragments, Episode, New Bach and Mother Popcorn were thrilling to watch and a rare treat to see at Vassar.
As the curtain opens and lights rise on the stage, we are greeted with the first dance. The music begins and we are transported back to the time of scratchy record players. The costumes are very similar to other classical ballets with billowing sleeves for the men and matching dresses for the woman but the choreographer, Robert Garland, chose to do his classical ballet not to the classical music of Chopin or Tchaikovsky but to classical ragtime. The Joplin Dances is set to the music of Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb, and Artie Matthews. All of these men are famous for the creation of and their contribution to the ragtime musical genre. Of the four, Joseph Lamb is the only non African-American, which makes the music choice very fitting for a dance company that strives to display and promote the talent of African American artists. Ragtime was most popular in the late 1890s and early 1900s and the performance’s recording was most certainly made during this time. The dance had all the makings of a classical ballet. It included a corps de ballet, which created the landscape, solos performed by women at the beginning, and a pas de deux with the principal man and woman. Keeping up with the ragtime rhythms, the performance was exciting and fast-paced. It did a satisfying job paying homage to the great ragtime composers of that era.
read more…
This dance is about gluttony referring to the seven deadly sins. This is the first time I have really seen a public dance created as art and not as a performance. The concept and direction comes from Dries Verhoeven and the choreography, performance as well as the concept is by Ty Boomershine.
Update:
‘Did you film the choreography and then learn it backwards? It flows very nicely, I don’t know what it looks like forwards.’
Ty Boomershine: ‘Actually I just reversed (retrograded) it without the use of a camera. I just figured it out in the studio. The whole thing is filmed forward then played in reverse half time. So I’m also dancing double time, which was the hardest part.’
How do you feel about gluttony and supermarkets?
Are the Seven Deadly Sins universal and timeless or are they merely myths that are accessible and relatable to today’s problems?
What is your favorite part about this choreography? Did you have any idea that the choreography was danced in retrograde?
Do you ever dance to the music playing at Wal-Mart?
The name for this dance comes from ‘an old Seneca Indian trail near Rochester, New York.” Although this may not be the actual Native American trail, a road now passes near Rochester, New York with the same name. It is possible to drive along this Oatka Trail or it’s alternative name, Co. Rd. 17, but this dance was created for the Oatka Trail that was visible long before it’s concrete burial.
Google Maps: Oatka Trail near Rochester, NY
There are three male dancers who perform this piece. Two are from the original company and one is an apprentice. They enter and exit the stage at intervals as well as taking the time to dance alone. They leap and bound at moments with their arms overhead. At the cusp of their jump, the heels of their hands come together yet don’t touch as if repelled by magnets. It is set to Antonin Dvorak’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B Minor, op. 104.
Part II:
The two older men dancing are Norwood Pennewell and Steve Humphrey.
Norwood is considered Garth Fagan’s ‘assistant and muse’ and has been with the company since 1978 and Steve, who has been with the company for 39 years, had this very role created for him when Oatka Trail was choreographed. This marks the 30th anniversary performance of the piece.
It is amazing to watch these men perform. Garth Fagan, for all his awards and recognitions is no longer necessarily on the cutting edge of dance. His performance did not include any projectors or multi-media computer generator decor. There weren’t any large props for the dancers to tackle and the lighting didn’t create any abrupt or intense scenes, all which are very popular in today’s ‘emerging’ and even ‘established’ artists. And I would have a very difficult time trying to convey any of the dances I saw as ‘fierce.’ But what occurred on that stage came from a much deeper place than ‘fierce’ could have offered.
Norwood Pennewell and Steve Humphrey
It’s possible that the dances are dated, much like the dancers who are performing them. They have been performing this dance for over 30 years and the steps haven’t changed. But if there was nothing to take from the maturity of this old dance, than why is it performed by older dancers? Garth Fagan could have easily selected younger, intense, fierce dancers to take their place and told his long held dancers that it was time for them to move on as is done in many companies. The dance world seems to demand fresh meat. It tells you to start young and cross your fingers, hold your breath and hope that you aren’t too old and started too late. Instead, Garth keeps the men there. They are dancing a beautiful dance that has been in their bodies for years. It is clear from the second the dance begins that they are comfortable and happy to be performing this dance again, with an appreciation that a new dancer could never truly have. And just to make sure he is not clinging to the past, Garth puts in his apprentice. An upcoming dancer, not quite yet a full-fledged member of the company, who contrasts this deeper appreciation with all the things an audience loves about a young dancer. Only this time, it is not the only thing the audience will love.
How often does the age of a dancer affect how you experience a dance?
How long do you hope to keep dancing?
What is your favorite quality about a dancer who has had many more years of dance than others?
Who do you know that will most likely die in the middle of teaching a dance class before giving up dance?
November 1st, 2009, 7:30pm
Joyce Theater
New York City, New York
Garth Fagan’s dances are known for being layered in meaning and involving many ideas. The title of the piece, Mudan, is the Chinese name for a peony, the music is written and performed by Chinese artists and the numbers ‘175/39′ refer to Chinese numeration. But something not so noticeable, as it didn’t enter the dance until the second half, was a dancer that seemed strangely familiar.
After searching my mind during the dance, I referred to the playbill and scanned to a name that stood out: Vitolio Jeune. My suspicions were confirmed when I finally read the line: “Mr. Jeune is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts and recently finished as a top 14 contestant in season five of FOX’s ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’”
Here I was watching a dance steeped in Chinese cultural references with complex modern movement and rhythms while one of the performers was a dancer I had watched bring an audience to screams of praise with his jazz routine and into tears as he was cut by a panel of judges in the heart of Los Angeles.
I watched Season 5 of the poorly named and often abbreviated SYTYCD show. To some, this show is an amazing display of the nation’s talented dancers. It is bringing a sometimes rarely seen art form into the family rooms of America’s households and the hearts of America’s dreaming and inspired youth. But to others, it is presenting the sometimes sacred art of dance in a commercialized and damaging way. It is taking the already ambiguous ‘contemporary’ label and pushing it to a perceived less meaningful, inauthentic, entertainment-driven expression. I personally very much enjoyed the dancing and made sure to fast forward through the judging process.
Mathieu Young/FOX
I remember when Alex Wong tried to audition for the show but wasn’t able to get out of his Miami City Ballet contract. Many of the ballet dancers I was around at the time couldn’t understand why anyone would want to jeopardize their career by ’selling out’ and becoming a national dance celebrity. It seemed that once you showed face on a national reality TV show, it would be difficult for anyone to take you seriously and hire you into their dance company. How would the celebrity status effect your position in their dance company? If you had a following, how would the audiences react to the dancing in a very different environment? One episode in the 4th season of SYTYCD featured guests Aubrey Morgan and Eddy Tovar of LA Ballet performing a pas de deux from George Balanchine’s “Who Cares?” The audience cheered at every extension and turned a very beautiful ballet into a series of tricks.
This fear, it seems, is unfounded. Little was said about Vitolio or SYTYCD and most of the aging audience probably didn’t even realize the show existed or Vitolio’s participation in it. Very often celebrity status from a reality show is fleeting and Viotlio certainly wasn’t hired without his technique, performance ability and I’m sure his Afro-Caribbean background didn’t hurt either. Even though his facebook page still clings tightly to SYTYCD, promoting his ‘contemporary’ and hip-hop classes, and there is no mention of his involvement or performance with Garth Fagan, there seems to be a separation between his public reality show image and his more private modern dance involvements. His twitter, advertised in his facebook page, does include a few tweets about his performance and reviews at Joyce Theater.
Did you notice Vitolio before or during his performance?
How do you feel about SYTYCD and it’s place in the world of dance?
What do you think about the transition from SYTYCD into other areas of dance?
Should I audition for SYTYCD to get my foot in the dance door?
November 1st, 2009, 7:30pm
Joyce Theater
New York City, New York
Although the title would suggest otherwise, 9 dancers are placed on the stage in deep blue shiny unitards. The piece is set to the entire 77th opus of Johannes Brahms Violin Concerto in D. The movement begins small and in unison as the dancers move in and out of beautifully constructed body lines, at times moving quickly and with force and other times slowly and with intention. The first section of the dance is set to all of section one of the opus and runs seamlessly into section two.
Credit: Steve Labuzetta
Violin Concerto in D, Opus 77, Section 1:
Violin Concerto in D, Opus 77, Section 2:
As soon as the first note of Section 2 was played, I was immediately taken by surprise. I am not an avid classical music listener but I recognized this song. Specifically from David Berkey’s famous piece, Sentinel, choreographed in 1990, two years later.
Credit: Michael Williams
Sentinel is a quartet choreographed at the end of David Berkey’s career and tells a story of passing knowledge and life on to a younger generation. It’s a beautiful and lyrical dance that makes use of the dynamics within the music for powerful leaps during intense upsurges and quiet deliberateness during lulls. Garth Fagan does not do this. In fact there is no transition from the first song to the next within the dance, the dancers just continue on and ignore any of the emotional pushes of the music. Even to the point where the music seems hardly to affect the audience.
The music continues on.
Violin Concerto in D, Opus 77, Section 3:
As the dance progresses, phrases from the begining continue to appear in random and sometimes unpredictable ways. The partnerings shift and both women and men take each other’s roles. One partner is slowly lifted from the floor by the standing partner to a position with one leg on the ground and the other lifted high above and behind the head. This is juxtaposed with quck flapping arms and direction changes. All with a continuous flow.
Although the this dance and that of David Berkery are very different. It was difficult not to see the other dance while watching this one. The music didn’t punch me the way it would have had I not already seen it performed under an entirely different circumstance. Instead of watching the movement, I couldn’t help but compare the two immediately and decide that this one certainly wasn’t using the music the way I would expect from seeing the previous dance first.
Many times within the dance world, two or more dances will be choreographed to the same song. Especially with such attractive composers such as Phillip Glass, Steve Reich or any number of well known classical scores, it can be difficult to make a song your own. I have been told that at dance festivals it is incredibly important to be prepared for the possibility that two pieces will use the same music and to figure out a solution.
Have you seen both of these dances? Which did you see first?
When have you seen modern dances using the same music? How did it affect you?
Do the multiple uses of a single music piece create a deeper cultural understanding of the music or should each dance’s use be considered separately?
Were you upset when your ‘Single Ladies’ interpreation get lost in the avalanche of youtube videos?
November 1st, 2009, 7:30pm
Joyce Theater
New York City, New York
I’ve been asked this question a number of times. I can only assume that most people connected to dance in various ways are also asked this or even more broadly, ‘Were you a dancer?’
I have never been able to answer this without pausing and asking for clarification.
If, for example, someone were to ask if I was a tennis player when I was a member of the junior varsity tennis team in high school I would have said, ‘Yes, I’m a tennis player. I play tennis on a team.” But when I was studying psychology freshman year in college, which I contemplated majoring in, if someone had asked if I was a psychologist, I would have said, “No, I’m not a psychologist, I’m just studying psychology in school.”
So the question of whether or not I am a dancer is tricky. Sure I study dance in school and I have been taking dance classes since I was very young, but at what point am I a ‘dancer?’ After a certain number of years? When I reach a certain age? When I join a company that performs at reputable venues? Most people enjoy dancing to music at school dances or clubs or wedding receptions. Are they not dancers? Some people were trained in dance at some point in their life but stopped before choosing a career that doesn’t involve dance. At what point do they stop saying that they are a dancer, or that they were a dancer, or were they a dancer to begin with?
The question becomes even more complicated when someone skips the previous question and dives right in to, “What kind of dancer are you?” What label would you place yourself under? A ballet dancer? A jazz dancer? A tap dancer? I have studied all three of these techniques, which one should I choose? Perhaps it should be the one I have practiced the most, or the one I have most recently performed on stage, or the one I am best at dancing. But how do I even compare which style I do best? And how about deciding you are a modern dancer? When it’s already difficult enough to decide which dancing is modern, post-modern, contemporary, Graham based, Limón based, post-modern pre-contemporary minimalist Caribbean dance, how do you decide that you are a modern or contemporary dancer?
I thought about what kind of dancer I would say I was while standing on the side of a rehearsal for a piece involving ‘contemporary’ Irish step-dance and decided that there is no answer. Our culture asks us to define who we are based on the careers we choose. You are a plumber, a lawyer, a nurse, a chiropractor, a McDonald’s manager, a stay-at-home mom, and you are conveniently tucked away and placed into a demographic that each individual within our society can understand.
I love to dance. I dance constantly. I hope to never stop dancing, and when I must, I will stay connected with dancing. But I, and everyone who dances, is more than a ‘dancer.’ Everyone loves to dance. There is no need to label one’s involvement with the joy of moving. The only person who needs to know the answer is everyone but you. And if anyone asks me, “Are you a dancer?”, I suppose the only thing I could say is, “I love to dance! Is that what you meant?”
How do you feel about this question?
Does it ever bother you?
Are you a dancer?
The stage is filled with ballerinas en pointe, decked in short black dresses and with a delicate flower in their hair. They are beautiful, elegant and some of most built ballerinas I have ever seen. This is, of course, because Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo is most notable for being an all male ballet company and for mocking the formalities of ballet. I have never seen the original dance, Concerto Barocco, choreographed by Balanchine, but a description of the work can be found on the NYCB website:
Credit: Paul Kolnik
Balanchine said of this work: “If the dance designer sees in the development of classical dancing a counterpart in the development of music and has studied them both, he will derive continual inspiration from great scores.” In the first movement of the concerto, the two ballerinas personify the violins, while a corps of eight women accompany them. In the second movement, a largo, the male dancer joins the leading woman in a pas de deux. In the concluding allegro section, the entire ensemble expresses the syncopation and rhythmic vitality of Bach’s music.
Balanchine clearly takes his dance quite seriously and expressly adhears to classical ballet in his piece. The Trockadero company also explains their peice, Go for Barocco, choreographed by Peter Anastos, on their website:
Stylistic heir to Balanchine’s “Middle-Blue-Verging-On-Black-and-White Period,” this ballet has become a primer in identifying stark coolness and choreosymphonic delineation in the new (neo) neo-new classic dance. It has been called a wristwatch for Balanchine clock time.
The most important aspect, and the reason for the company’s success is that the humor does not come expressly from men dressed and dancing as women. There is an element of drag queen humor with all the gaudy make-up and the essence of being vulgar yet pristine, but what makes the audience laugh is how the dancers take the seriousness of deified ballets and poke fun at the structures that make ballet both beautiful and utterly haughty.
The ballet world is the oldest and most rigid of all popular dance, in both technique and in gender roles. Although there is beauty in celebrating the differences between the sexes, ballet has held to these roles so rigidly that they transcend into every day culture. Even today in a society that may do its best to create equality and similarity between the roles men and women should take, once entering a ballet class, men have their role and woman the other. What the Trockadero company shows is that this doesn’t have to be true. With perfect technique, these men are incredible to watch. Ballet is still evolving and the roles men and women play within it have slowly been pushed beyond what they were. The company is just as much a sign of changing attitudes as they are the reason these changes are occurring. We can credit the ‘TROCKS’ for pushing this change along.
What was your favorite part of this dance?
Have you seen the original Concerto Barocco?
Have you seen any similar performances that mock classical dance?
Have you ever dressed in drag?
Fall for Dance Festival, September 26th, 2009
New York City Center
New York City, New York
‘Revelations has been seen by more people around the world than any other work of dance,’ so says the program information. My friend prepared me to see this dance by saying ‘I’ve been watching Revelations on youtube and crying.’ I didn’t know if she was necessarily the type to weep freely, but if a youtube video could illicit such a response I certainly was on the edge of my seat to watch it live.
There are so many magnificent aspects to this dance. The music is comprised entirely of gospel singing and each voice is as intense and individual as the dancers. The voices are personal and reach deep into your core as you realize that you are not just listening to people singing, but to souls releasing everything from within. You are not watching dancers, you are watching the souls of the past and present tell the story of their lives. Each section of the dance comes with a different intensity, lighting, costumes and experience. There is a couple dancing slowly with sensitive intensity to ‘Fix Me Jesus,’ a fast-paced celebratory river scene with incredible control of undulating midsections to ‘Wade in the Water,’ a trio of men bounding on stage to ‘Sinner Man’ as they reach and spin and reach even impossibly further with the control and desperation of someone who cannot seem to outrun oneself, and an incredible conclusion with bright yellow dresses and vests, the women reaching high with their yellow fans, laughing, and dancing for joy to ‘Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham. With an extended curtain call and an encore, the entire audience was on its feet, clapping and dancing.
From: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
The Alvin Ailey dance company is known for being comprised of mostly African Americans and with some of the most flexible, powerful and intense dancers in the world. To be an Ailey dancer, it would seem one would have to be tall, have incredible strength and control, have unbelievable flexibility and be black. The Ailey school has done so much to further African Americans in dance, to the point where the technique of the dancers is the envy of a good deal of the dance world, if not all of it. I have always loved Horton technique (which comprises much of Ailey’s technique) and loved the strength with which Ailey’s members danced and it wasn’t until seeing this performance that I saw any glimmer of my own possibility of dancing with it. One of the dancers was a shorter young white boy named Michael Francis McBride. I don’t know for sure what his ethnicity is, he definitely does not look like the typical Ailey dancer, but his dancing was no less incredible than the other men throughout the piece. I have taken classes in Horton and I have enjoyed watching it performed but I have always cut myself off form believing I could actually be in Alvin Ailey. Although there are plenty of other reasons why I will most likely never be in that company, not least of which is the fact that at my age I would already be in it, but the color of my skin, something impossible to change, is clearly not one of them.
Alvin Ailey, and the new director Judith Jameson, did not choose mostly African American dancers for aesthetic reasons, and I think the cultural reasons they did choose them for are important. At a time when African American voices were not easily heard, having a diverse company could have easily watered down the message of an already underrepresented minority. But could a cast of entirely white dancers perform Revelations with the same effect? Would the white dancers be imitating the black spirit and history? Was Michael? Are the black dancers somehow more connected to the dance? I suppose that isn’t really the point. Pushing aside the case for diversity, which certainly has its place, there is nothing more appropriate celebrating the history and culture of African Americans than with African American dancers, especially when there are so few showcased in other companies. So how do I juggle both wishing to be on that stage but also wanting the company to continue in it’s African American history and keeping black dancers on the forefront of dance? I suppose that is a question everyone is trying to answer.
When was the first time you saw Revelations and how did it affect you?
How would you feel about Revelations being performed entirely by a white or very diverse company?
Is it disappointing to see this discussed about Alvin Ailey when so many mostly white companies are never questioned? Which companies do you wish were more diverse? Which do you wish were less?
What would you like to see the future of Alvin Ailey to look like? Why should or shouldn’t diversity matter in a company comprised of mostly minorities?
Oh, sinner man, where ya gonna run to?
Fall for Dance Festival, October 3rd, 2009
New York City Center
New York City, New York
