BalletX presented their New York City season Wednesday September 24 through Friday September 28 at the Joyce Theater. The five-day, six performance series presented four effectual works that demonstrated the company’s range and proficiency. This Philadelphia based contemporary ballet company’s New York season can best described as sensual, sultry, and visceral.
The first of two premieres, Scales on the Wings of Butterflies by choreographer Noelle Kayser opened the program. The curtain rose on a clump of limp bodies center stage resembling a huge pile of colorful laundry. The pile melted away revealing a solo male dancer facing upstage. The reveal was followed by a black out.
When the light returned the dancers had reconfigured into couples, with the woman suspended on the male dancer’s bodies visually possessing all the hallmarks of a new life form. The opening tableaus and the subsequent movement quickly established the evening’s most consistent tenets – strong well-crafted choreography and adroitly executed partnering.
The duet featuring Minori Sakita and Peter Weil was the works centerpiece and was another example of the company’s assured partnering. Jeff Kolar’s atonal music score assisted the work in creating a tribal plurality of abstract images and configurations. The work was based on microscopic images and videography of insect limbs, shells, and cellular reactions, but there was nothing minuscule about this explosive ensemble work.
A solo excerpt from Darrell Grand Moultrie’s Vivir captured the essence of his native Spanish Harlem. In Commedia dell’arte, a forerunner of ballet, the performers could face upstage and “talk” to you with their backs. Here Moultrie turns dancer Joao Pedro Silva upstage and provides us with a powerful and esthetically pleasing dorsal soliloquy. At times Silva’s upper body carriage, and the noble way he held his back and neck evoked images of Jose Limon. Vivir premiered on BalletX in 2008 and remains a fresh and powerful homage to the Latin contributions to America’s cultural identity.
An excerpt from Two People in Love Never Shake Hands by choreographer Nicola Wills was the evening’s best example of an abstract dance theater narrative work. Her focused thematic duet told of a relationship that had run its course, and the lovers decide to go their separate ways. The couple make the ill-fated decision to try to rekindle their relationship and leave again after awkwardly shaking hands- hence the title.
This dancing metaphor exemplifies the phrase “never tread the same water twice.” The excerpt required a commitment that went beyond just movement and dancers Lanie Jackson and Jared Kelly interpretations of Wills’ intent was spot on. Both dancers so embodied the roles that at times you watched them from the sternum up, a true sign of the works immersive storytelling power.
The evening culminated with Sojourner the second premiere by choreographer Gregory Dawson. Normally closing with such an expansive work is programming suicide by producing an unbalanced bottom heavy/too long second act. This usually results in the audience experiencing “Sominex moments,” but in this case the well curated program was as balanced as a perfect four course meal.
Curtain opens on an elevated platform featuring a six-member orchestra including composer Luke Carlos O’Reilly (piano), Lee Hogans (trumpet), Christopher McBride (saxophone), Adi Meyerson (acoustic bass), Michael Piolet (drums) and Koh Hunter (percussion). The raised orchestra platform uncluttered the stage and produced strong and unobstructed sightlines. The platforms also formed a minimal yet atmospheric set while keeping the choreography the primary focus.
Strong rhythms and high energy dancing recalled New York City’s famed Copacabana nightclub in its 1950’s heyday. Using an impressive amalgam of dance styles including ballet, Latin inspired movement and Dawson’s own vision, he was able to create a tour de force closer. Every dancer was a standout, but Jonathan Montepara’s quirky solo, and the duet (“Wepa! Wepa!”) performed with great bravado by Sakita and Weil produced strong memorable moments. Sojourner culminated with the ensemble enraptured in an explosive Latin jazz crescendo.
New York City’s fall dance season has begun, and it guarantees to be as diversely dizzying as always. From Lincoln Center to Radio City, the Apollo Theater in Harlem and Kings Theater in Brooklyn; the city that never sleeps is also the city the never stop dancing. If you missed the BalletX Joyce Theater performances, you may want to see them on their home turf in Philly October 29th thru November 9th at the Suzanne Robert Theater. (I think I will let Amtrak do the driving) they were that good!
In Photo: 1. Eileen Kim 2. Company 3. Minori Sakita and Peter Weil 4. Lanie Jackson and Jared Kelly 5. Minori Sakita, Peter Weil and Luke Carlos O’Reilly 6. Eileen Kim
Photos by: Scott Serio for BalletX
