Kaatsbaan Celebrates Dance, from Tap to Genomes

Music From The Sole. Photo: Jack Baran

Kaatsbaan’s annual festival is a work in progress, this year spanning four weeks starting in September. Reliance on the uncovered outdoor Mountain Stage, with its panoramic views, in past years has meant numerous cancellations or relocating of performances due to inclement weather—rain or thunderstorms, not to mention sweltering heat and sun during performances. This year, a canopy has been added to the re-oriented stage, allowing the performers to be sheltered and some of the audience to be shaded. The festival took place later on, during cooler temps, in addition to scheduling events in the elegant, climate-controlled Black Box Theater.

Thus the New Works Bill of dance was performed inside in late September, and reminded me of why theaters are such welcoming safe havens for art, with every element controlled. Music From The Sole led off, a collective of body percussionists (with an emphasis on tap) plus a band whose members sometimes move alongside the dancers. Several tap dance islands were interspersed with platforms to hold the musicians, forming a kind of atoll, between which performers leapt playfully. The group emphasizes Brazilian music (artistic director and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval is Brazilian; Gregory Richardson and collaborators penned the music), which leans on a sunny, mellifluous kind of jazz that guarantees warm fuzzies.

As the performers filtered on, the dancers sat downstage, their backs to us, to watch as the musicians began tuning and playing. This set an amiable tone, as if we were watching a jam session in a studio and were part of the proceedings. The dancers exuded joy, visually checking one another and the musicians, often tapping in unison while moving across the stage. Sandoval is long-limbed, with a loose, playful style. Warm-toned lighting (Kathy Kaufman) complemented the overall feeling of generosity and positivity. Movement and sound-making—whether with an instrument or with the body—all blended into an ecstatic melange.

Boca Tuya. Photo: Jack Baran

Like Those Playground Kids at Midnight, by Boca Tuya, featured a duet by Omar Román De Jesús and Ian Spring. Through visceral and intricate partnering sequences, the two expressed intimacy and interdependence, both aggressive and tender. One sat on the other’s thigh, or bore the other’s weight, lifting, embracing, and resisting. At moments they seemed like one being. Jesse Scheinin composed the score, emphasizing a rhythmic flute; fog drifted onstage every now and then to add drama.

Limón Dance Company. Photo: Jack Baran

Kayla Farrish choreographed a preview of an untitled work for 13 dancers of the Limón Dance Company, sourcing inspiration from two Limón works: Redes and El Grito, with loose themes of collective work and consciousness and freedom, respectively. Sweeping passages for many dancers seemed to expand the black box stage, pushing energy beyond the walls. The company heaved as one, formed a circle several times, and morphed into a tableau that resembled the prow of a ship. The music, by Alex MacKinnon, ranged from cacophonous, squealing jazz to bass-heavy sections to soulful guitar licks. Toward the end, a woman became isolated from the group, evoking the way a victim is chosen in Rite of Spring. Farrish skillfully crafts muscular phrases, although despite the seriousness of the given themes, a little humor or break in the fervency might have offered some emotional texture.

In early October, on the newly sheltered Mountain Stage, Kaatsbaan presented Autobiography V100 & V101, by Company Wayne McGregor. Its namesake choreographer has many laurels and major commissions to his name, but I confess that the work has failed to resonate with me. He works with highly skilled dancers, creating a maximally expressive movement style that tests the pliability of the body. In Autobiography, 23 sections of movement (for the 23 pairs of chomosomes in the human genome) are ordered by algorithm, bookended by set scenes. While this certainly sounds serious and of import—and no doubt it is to McGregor and the dancers, who perform it differently at each show—it’s mostly lost on viewers. But appended to the regular production credits are a list of Ongoing Scientific Partners, providentially expanding the project's reach and financial resources.

Autobiography, photographed in Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France (2023)
 Photo: Ravi Deepres

Music by Jlin ranges from tinkling pipes to explosive booms to electronic ephemera, peppered with shrieks and text snippets, such as “leave me alone.” The dynamics vary from energetic, space-eating phrases to intimate partnering. Some stage structures manifest in a slow walking circle on the perimeter, or two interlocking upstage lines. The dancers continually change costumes (by Aitor Throup) between sections, from smocks to tied-shirt skirts in blacks and whites to minimal bikinis in the finale.

Genome sequencing aside, the vocabulary leans on McGregor’s hyper expressionist staples such as rippling torsos, high leg extensions, and bursting leaps. The choreographer seems to constantly be searching for the body's limits, yet it elicits no emotion or reflection. The style feels external, as if it were applied and not generated from some internal impulse, in the way dances by Camille Brown or Ohad Naharin. After repeated viewing, there's little sparking curiosity or the desire to learn what kind of story or physical experiment underpins the choreography.

As for the Mountain Stage, while the canopy is welcome, without apparent added front lighting, the dancers are at times difficult to see as they're silhouetted in front of sunlit trees and sky. (Judging from the company-supplied photos from France, taken indoors, the lighting scheme is highly designed and integral to the work.) But the facility upgrade helps the viewer experience, as do chairs for some of the audience. The entire campus, with many buildings designed by Stanford White, is an idyllic destination for culture, evolving each season.

Day for Night, for All

Day for Night. Photo: Liz Devine

The July 21 performance of Pam Tanowitz’s premiere, Day for Night, encapsulated the best of summer in the city, with the weather cooperating. A buzzy premiere by one of the busiest choreographers, a lovely new venue, the great outdoors set apart from the hot city, but not too far—what’s not to like? It was presented as part of Little Island’s summer slate, of impressive bounty and breadth, with nine commissions.

Little Island is reached by foot or bicycle by crossing the West Side Highway—an act of metamorphosis that shifts your mindset into one of leisure and breezes after being baked from above and below during the daytime. The Island is an architectural folly, and its design and fastidiousness make it feel a bit like an amusement park. (In a good way.) The pre-8:30 curtain sun was steadily sinking over New Jersey, and on this night, it emitted a palette of lavenders and pinks, with some low, dense clouds refracting the sun to electrify the Hoboken skyline.

As I approached the amphitheater, dancers in green romped on the grass patches, with Tanowitz quietly giving them direction in a prelude to the show. The theater’s upstage is the Hudson River, including a stand of piers and New Jersey. Boats cruised by surprisingly fast, some with no lights on. Seagulls perched on the piers and squawked. The occasional siren sounded from the city behind, plus a lot of helicopter buzzing.

While most of the dance action takes place on the center stage, Tanowitz expands the performance space up the numerous aisles, on and below the Juliet balcony catwalks on either side of the stage, and to the railing of the upstage fence overlooking the river where the dancers stop to gaze out or wave lazily at the birds. She regularly incorporates venues into her dances; just last week, at Jacob’s Pillow, in her Secret Things, a dancer walked into the house and acknowledged the musicians in the pit before going backstage. At Bard in 2021, in I Was Waiting for the Echo of a Better Day, her dancers roamed and danced around the vast grounds of Montgomery Place overlooking the Catskills; it was left to viewers to decide where to look, when.

Maile Okamura, Marc Crousillat, Lindsey Jones
in Day for Night. Photo: Liz Devine

Tanowitz continues her remarkable choreographic invention by isolating and combining different details of each part of the body in unlimited variants, continuously creating subtly new shapes. (It evokes the Surrealists’ game of Exquisite Corpse, but with the body’s sections making dimensional configurations from surprising recombinants.) There are many tender interactions between the dancers in Day for Night, if no traditional lifts or partnering tropes. Certain dancer pods perform long sections before others appear, solo or in small groups, only to exit for long spans. Recurring motifs include the pony step; falling onto a side-extended leg and raising the other leg, like a see-saw; deep pliés in second; and, in repose on the astroturfed benches, joining us in observing other dancers at work. 

Justin Ellington created the sound, a pastiche of found snippets over which ambient noises (birds, choppers) layered, and Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung designed the multi-hued mesh costumes. Davison Scandrett designed the mostly nuanced, sometimes bold lighting, no easy task when competing with a sunset. Melissa Toogood performed a coda in the Grove, a bookend to the danced preludes. We departed in the dark, crossing the West Side Highway back to the main beehive of Manhattan. It felt like waking from a dream of the best kind. 

Little Island is a fantastic small venue with ambitious, rewarding programming led by Zack Winokur, producing artistic director, and Laura Clement, executive director, with tickets at $25. Just check the weather forecast.

Plein Air Dance, Summer of 2024

Smashed2. Photo: Camille Greenwell

SMASHED2

Gandini Juggling | PS21, Chatham, NY | July 12, 2024

Oranges, watermelons, and juggling! Kati Ylä-Hokkala and Sean Gandini took inspiration for SMASHED2 from Pina Bausch, which is evident from the first moment of the show as performers clad in semi-formal black dresses and suits cross rhythmically downstage—while juggling oranges. There could be far worse templates for a cirque show, but this homage was not noted in the digital program, and so all I could think was how blatantly the UK's Gandini Juggling had ripped off Bausch. But on their website, they duly acknowledge their debt to Pina, and a bit of scrolling shows they’re working on a project that honors Merce Cunningham as well.

And actually, the Nelken line works beautifully for this parade of jugglers, each highly skilled in the vexing craft, yet able to sync their movements while pacing in rhythm. They also borrow the convention of a solo woman downstage, speaking directly to the audience, in this case, saying “Oranges. Watermelons.” Indeed, these are the two main props for this evening of whimsy, underpinned by darker themes of gender conflict and retribution.

Smashed2. Photo: Camille Greenwell

As the scenes progress, women juggle while the two men attempt to distract and flirt with them. A woman with a baton also tries to disrupt the main juggler’s routine, ultimately with success. Six of the women surround one, forming a kind of many-armed Kali that passes around oranges in an overly long sequence. The watermelons are held by the women, now lying down in a circle, using their feet to balance the fruit, or passing them around. As you might guess from the title, things get juicy at the end, when the women overpower the men and use them for target practice for the melons and the juice of oranges, taking revenge for previous harassment. Similar to Bausch, the performance is grounded by a varied songlist that ranges from Americana folk song to new age shimmer. And, as always at PS21, the onstage action in the open-air amphitheater fought for attention, this time from a hot-air balloon cruising in the sultry air nearby.

Chun Wai Chan, Grace Scheffel, and Gilbert Bolden III in Underneath, There Is Light. Photo: Erin Baiano

New York City Ballet

Saratoga Performing Arts Center | Saratoga Springs, NY | July 11, 2024

There were also distractions at SPAC in Saratoga Springs for its annual presentation of New York City Ballet, but primarily from the audience, for which the plein-air theater seems conducive to random chatting, and from one rowdy man directly behind me lacking impulse control, badly timed, bellowed F-words or OMGs, albeit in support of the dancers. I caught the contemporary program, which alternated with Jewels and some classic chestnuts including Swan Lake and Coppélia. I had seen Amy Hall Garner’s Underneath, There Is Light at the Koch Theater earlier this year, and at the spacious SPAC stage, it felt better situated, with its non-stop blasts of pyrotechnics. In the second part, the women in gold gowns and the men in pearl rompers seemed to float organically into the surrounding atmosphere.

Naomi Corti and Ruby Lister in Gustave le Gray No.1. Photo: Erin Baiano

Two very different red quartets followed. Red Angels by Ulysses Dove (1994), a chamber-scaled staple of the repertory, features electric movements to match the twangy music by Richard Einhorn. Pam Tanowitz’s Gustave Le Gray No. 1 (2019) features four women responding to, and literally moving, Stephen Gosling and his piano. With a repeating motif of a simple sauté, it’s the choreographer’s most poetic and intimate commission for the company yet, and rewards re-viewing. (Tanowitz remains one of the busiest choreographers around. Earlier in the week, I saw the Royal Ballet perform an excerpt of Tanowitz's Secret Things (2023) at Jacob's Pillow, write-up forthcoming, and will soon see Day For Night, her commission for Little Island in New York City.)

The Times Are Racing (2017), by Justin Peck, holds particular interest after seeing his music-theater work Illinoise at Bard last year. So many of the movements and tropes that suffuse the Broadway-bound show (for which Peck won the Tony for best choreography) are nascent in Times, and they felt radical and fresh seven years ago. But he has made so much work in the interim that some of his inventions feel overly familiar. Clustering centerstage, pulsing and lifting up one dancer, bursting apart… the outwear to signify breaking of tradition or the “outside”… sneakers… these all are elements Peck has used time and again. Times is kind of a primer of many of Peck’s non-classical motifs packed into 25 minutes, and apparently reason enough to scream more ecstatic expletives at the stage.

New York Notebook, June 2024

Catherine Hurlin and Daniel Camargo in Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works. Photo: Marty Sohl

 

ABT performed the company premiere of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works (2015) during its 2024 season at the Met Opera House. It was presented alongside weathered classics such as Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake, and newer works such as Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate (2023). With rare exception, it’s a formula they have followed for many years; kudos to them for adding a truly contemporary ballet—actually three differing, short ballets. If only it had more choreographic appeal.

I confess that McGregor’s choreography has not spoken to me over the years. He pushes already extreme artist-athletes’ bodies in superhuman ways, often distorting a split past 180º, kicking a foot out rather than simply extending it, and having the men energetically manipulate their female partners. Rather than creating fluid phrases that read like sentences and paragraphs, his choreography can come off as a series of one-word exclamations. And that’s tough when you’re faced with a long evening to fill.

Alessandra Ferri in Woolf Works. Photo: Kyle Froman

At least the sections of Woolf varied enough to feel like three separate works. The first, I now, I then, based on Mrs. Dalloway, received the most traditional treatment. It’s set among three large, revolving, abstract wooden frames that presumably mark the protagonist’s eras. Perhaps the most significant coup of Woolf Works, and the probable connecting tissue, were the performances of longtime (“retired”) ABT principal Alessandra Ferri, now 61 and the originator of two of the three lead roles in WW, partnered by the sublime Herman Cornejo. Her abilities are ideal—chiefly, a paradigmatic ballet line and captivating expressions of vulnerability and wonder. I also caught the cast led by Gillian Murphy (with Joo Won Ahn), who, while technically crisp, exudes too much efficient capability for such a sensitive character. Perhaps the narrative is meant as a general outline for stage action, but it's somewhat impenetrable given the scant program notes.

Becomings, the second act based on Orlando, discards any narrative. Instead, we see gender fluidity and same-sex pairings, and similar courtly costumes of gold lamé worn by both women and men, until toward the end, all are in flesh-hued leotards. The movement is largely hyper-expressionistic, suiting fearless dynamo Catherine Hurlin to a tee. But the main event is the laser show (lighting design by Lucy Carter), which is probably no big deal for Cirque du Soleil in Vegas, but at the Met, with ballet, breaks literal spatial barriers. Dancers’ bodies pierce a vertical plane of light bisecting the stage, creating an electric outline. Several horizontal planes beam into the house, above our heads, while clouds are projected onto them. It brought the stage into the entire auditorium, and garnered huge applause.

Spectacular, for sure, but these bold production strokes often made the dancers look shrunken and inconsequential. Several duets or small groupings were performed at the same time, making it difficult to focus. Some small ensemble passages—the women performing a simple port de bras phrase; the men lying on their sides—provided rare satisfying choreographic moments. It made me think on how, in the classics, a duet (like the pas de deux in Swan Lake) can command the entirety of the stage, fake lake or not, and why. Tuesday, the third act based on The Waves, contrasts the independent and childless lead (Ferri/Murphy) with her sister and her children, with their oddly literal frolicking. A magnificent slo-mo film of crashing waves (film design by Ravi Deepres) hovers overhead, once again belittling the small humans below (and grabbing attention), but conveying the recurring theme of water in Woolf’s work, and all the life-giving and -taking symbolism therein.

The score by Max Richter offers little in the way of a framework, with its cinematic feel—pulsating, crescendoing, repetitive. It provides an aural parallel to McGregor’s choreography, but nearly two hours of both turns out to be a stretch. You have to credit ABT for taking a flyer on Woolf Works, but its lack of legible substance in light of the evening’s inspiration disappoints. In the context of the rest of the Met season, it at least promised a lauded, contemporary varietal, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t return.

Eran Bugge and Alex Clayton in Runes. Photo by Steven Pisano

In contrast, I saw two programs at the Joyce—Extreme Taylor. The slates offered some less mainstream or smaller scale earlier repertory by Paul Taylor alongside some chestnuts. Big Bertha is one of Taylor’s most egregiously shocking creations; a carnival automaton (Christina Lynch Markham, a notably dramatic dancer in her final run with the company) waves her wand to unleash violence and incest on a family. It exemplifies a highly dramatic subset of Taylor’s work that, without words, expresses radical societal behavior that simmers just beneath the surface—American Gothic on steroids. 

Lee Duveneck, Christina Lynch Markham, Eran Bugge, Kristin Draucker
in Big Bertha. Photo by Ron Thiele

Post Meridian (1965) and Duet (1964) are among his more rigorously modern dances, performed in color block or patterned unitards. They emphasize plastic experimentation and rigorous partnering, both examples of early Taylor choreography where there are no extra steps—models of economy and necessity. Private Domain (1969) combined spare phrasing with the simple dramatic device of downstage partitions (Alex Katz) that obstructed a viewer’s total stage picture, akin to the daily urban theater of peering into residential windows. In Runes (1975), Taylor added a layer of ritual (and fur pelts, designed under his alias), plus the timepiece of an orbiting moon. The sheer physical requirements of being a Taylor dancer hoved into view when Devon Louis, calm and solid as a tree, crossed and spun upstage bearing a woman pressed overhead.

Lisa Borres, Jessica Ferretti, Jada Pearman, Devon Louis, Lee Duveneck
in Post Meridian. Photo by Steven Pisano

Handel and Bach’s ebullient music drives both Airs (1978) and Brandenburgs (1988), respectively. Of Taylor’s “pattern” dances, the movement hews closely to the score, sometimes doubling or halving the tempo. And as lighthearted and buoyant as the dances read, they mandate incredible strength, stamina, and rehearsal drill time to appear so effortless. In particular, the corps of five men in Brandenburgs were synced like the atomic clock. Taylor’s mastery of entrances, exits and a satisfying variation in section dynamics were on full display.

Wayne McGregor has accolades in spades, but I continually wonder what I’m missing. Clearly my expectations from an evening’s work don’t overlap with Woolf Works. As his motor was the oeuvre of Virginia Woolf, I craved more narrative clues to link to her novels; longer program notes might assist, but the action onstage should be able to stand alone. More charismatic music also might provide support, and choreography to draw the focus to one primary passage on the vast stage peppered with groups. Taylor’s more intimate repertory delivered these things in a smaller setting, and from seeing his larger work on big stages, it scales up.

When I thought, “why am I watching this?” I couldn’t provide an answer during Woolf Works, other than Ferri making a hero’s return, and filling a slot with contemporary ballet. Is filling two hours too much to ask these days? One wonders where the rep goes from here, riding alongside than the old classics. 

Note: McGregor's work receives more stage time this weekend at Jacob's Pillow, performed by the Royal Ballet of London.

The DNA of Paul Taylor's Esplanade, and new Lovette excerpts

Alicia Graf Mack and Damian Woetzel in Duet at 92Y. Photo: Richard Termine

The passing of the iconic modern choreographer Paul Taylor in 2018, to state the obvious, marked the end of an era. But it also liberated those guiding the company to reconsider public performances in ways that didn’t happen during the choreographer’s life. The company had already shifted into transition mode during the last decade of Taylor’s life, creating the umbrella of Paul Taylor American Modern Dance under which to present new commissions by American choreographers as well as iconic works of modern dance. With Artistic Director Michael Novak firmly guiding the company with Taylor gone, the modern master’s earlier, more radical work has been redeployed to help audiences understand the roots of Taylor’s most celebrated dances from later in his career.

While Taylor is widely regarded as an icon of modern dance, I have heard grumblings about the populist, sometimes nostalgic bent of his most popular dances, even from supposedly informed critics. I always thought that they just hadn’t seen enough of Taylor’s output, which is varied enough to offer something for pretty much everyone. And his earliest work—more aptly called performances than dances, so conceptual were many—were rarely performed while Taylor, in his late decades, continued to create one or two new dances annually. It feels like a lot of energy went into forefronting these premieres—rightly—which were scheduled among mostly better-known Taylor rep in the annual big New York seasons, first at City Center, then the Koch.

Novak has notably revivified the broader context of Taylor’s rep, at least in New York performances in the last years. In the first part of this year alone, two runs focus on some early work that earned attention through notoriety, and not necessarily popular appeal. Seven New Dances (with designs by Robert Rauschenberg) premiered in 1957 at the 92nd Street Y, and was so ill-received that the Y's program director said after the flop that Paul Taylor would return "over his dead body," in so many words. Fortunately he was wrong.

Esplanade at 92Y. Photo: Richard Termine

In a May 13 program as part of 92NY’s 150th celebration, PTDC performed The Story of Seven New Dances. Actor Alan Cumming, embodying Taylor, charmingly narrated and read quotes of Taylor’s musings about creating this suite, in between excerpts from the work with illustrious guest artists including Alicia Graf Mack (Ailey), Damian Woetzel (NYCB), both now in leadership positions at Juilliard, and NYCB principal Adrian Danchig-Waring. It features streetwear-clad dancers posing, shifting weight, or in Duet, simply frozen in repose (the latter, to John Cage’s 4’33”—silence) which, at the time of its premiere, received a “review” by Louis Horst of blank column inches. (How I wish I’d "written" that!)

While little movement was involved, which was part of the point, stage presence was required, thus the apt recruitment of some of New York's finest post- and current stage stars (even if it would've been perfectly fine using current company members). Some of the threads woven into the ironically-titled Seven New Dances—pedestrian movements of walking, running, pivoting, shifting—worked their way into Taylor’s opus, Esplanade (1975), an adrenalized performance of which ended the program. Leading off the show were brief excerpts from three new dances by Resident Choreographer Lauren Lovette, a glimpse of her bold, ambitious near-future plans for the company. A fun group romp that seemed more playtime than performance led off, followed by two compelling duets in black and white.

The 92NY evening departs from the usual programs given by PTDC, which typically haven’t included archival or educational components. But Novak is illuminating Taylor’s rich, broad oeuvre in such evenings—for now, a one-off, but which perhaps will be revisited in the future. Novak notes, “This program was created exclusively for 92NY in honor of their 150th Anniversary. I wanted to create a unique way to connect to Paul Taylor’s work through his own words and contextualize how his radical past gave a foundation for his more well-known repertory. I love exploring this lens in my programming." 

The company has also been adding shorter runs of select channels of the rep, such as Taylor's Bach dances at Manhattan School of Music a few years ago. The imminent Joyce Theater run from June 25-30 is called Extreme Taylor. It's an ambitious slate for a week; seven dances from 1964 to 1988 will be performed, including more pensive and provocative works such as Private Domain, Runes, and Post Meridian. Big Bertha will also be performed, one of the most nefariously shocking and riveting creations from Taylor’s psychodance-drama genre. PTDC will also be in Chatham, NY at PS21 on Aug 2 & 3 in a solid program of Brandenburgs, Runes, and Promethean Fire. The venue's elegant open-air amphitheater has become a welcome regular stop on the company's schedule.

Kenny Corrigan and Maria Ambrose in a new work by Lauren Lovette, at 92Y.
Photo: Richard Termine

About the current company... after considerable upheaval after Taylor's death and during the tumult of Covid, the roster seems to have settled in for now. Technically, the current company might be better than ever, if there are fewer personalities that might draw their own audience segments (that will evolve as tenures lengthen). In general, there seems to be less prevalence of the individual—be it Taylor and his imperatives, or the dancers—and more emphasis on the repertory, the community, and the company as a whole. The work has proved strong enough to bear temporal and personnel shifts, and Novak and company are illuminating the past while striding forward, making Taylor's work ever more relevant.

Martha Graham Dance Company: Doesn't Seem a Day Over 98

Rodeo. Carla Lopez, Luque Photography

Incredibly, Martha Graham Dance Company will celebrate its centennial in 2026 with GRAHAM 100. But it started the festivities recently with a New York City Center season titled American Legacies, because when you’re a modern dance company that has reached such a milestone, you’re allowed to pull out the stops. The program I saw on April 17 included Graham contemporary Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, with a stirring new orchestration of Copland’s canonic score by Gabe Witcher, played live by a bluegrass band. How refreshing to hear a more vernacular rendering of this score, so familiar and rote by now in the fully orchestrated version we usually hear. The performance also boasted new costumes by Oana Botez, colorful calicos, florals, and pastel hues, and evocative projections by Beowulf Boritt. Laurel Dalley Smith danced the Cowgirl—truculent at being ignored with her tomboy ways, but effervescent after donning a skirt and drawing attention. (Okay, the storyline might need overhauling as well, but... have things really changed that much?)

Jamar Roberts was commissioned to create We the People to bluegrass music by Rhiannon Giddens, also arranged by Witcher. In all denim separates (by Karen Young) and inky fields striated by cross-stage lighting (Yi-Chung Chen), the 12 dancers seemed fueled by passion, whether stemming from anger or protest. Scything arms, strident chops and twists, and thumping heels denoted the movement, frenetic in its start-stop rhythm. It felt like a martial arts demonstration at moments, with energy coiling and releasing. Roberts spaced several solos to silence between musical movements, dimming the sense of festivity that burbles in Giddens’ compositions, but focusing the underlying urgency in the movement. In particular, Lloyd Knight thrusted his arms, bowing backward so far that his head disappeared. The bluegrass tied this work to Rodeo, underscoring the simmering sociopolitical messaging in opposition to de Mille’s romantic caper.

We the People. Alessio Crognale-Roberts, Marzia Memoli, Lloyd Knight. Photo: Isabella Pagano

Maple Leaf Rag, from 1990, was Graham’s last choreographic work. She spoofs her own Greek tragedy seriousness, sending several dancers across the stage doing iconic Martha-isms—a woman in a cartwheeling skirt, a man pounding into an arabesque, holding his head as if in pain. The joggling board, remarkably flexible and yet strong enough to fold four dancing men, is the focus centerstage, where dancers flex, flirt, perch, and bounce. While Graham is often remembered for her mythic dramas, she certainly poked fun at herself with a sharpened stick in this dance.

I so often write about modern dance legacies these days. And Martha Graham Dance Company, under the guidance of Janet Eilber, is forging an optimal path for one-choreographer troupes. Stand-alone commissions frequently bear some relation to the repertory, such as the shared bluegrass roots in this program. Add to that the new production of Rodeo, refreshed for a new generation. And there’s the ongoing Lamentation Variations, short pieces by outside choreographers riffing on Graham’s famous solo. Eilber gives pre-show remarks about the rep, and they’re consistently informative and terse. While each company must forge its own path, the Graham company balances old and new with respect and a sense of humor.

Book note: Deborah Jowitt's biography of Martha Graham, Errand into the Maze, was recently released. Jowitt's descriptions of Graham's dances offer a valuable archive of her repertory, with the same grace and flair that marked Jowitt's decades of dance writing, primarily for The Village Voice.

Chamber Dance Collective at the Stissing Center

Nocturne, choreography by Martha Clarke. Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of New York

Theatre Ballet. Dancer: Guyonn Auriau in a 2017 performance at 92Y

After a particularly momentous week on Earth that included a wicked windstorm downing trees and power lines, an earthquake, and an eclipse, seeing An Evening of Master Choreography with Chamber Dance Collective at Stissing Center in Pine Plains definitely felt like a balm. It marked the unofficial start of the vibrant cultural season upstate, when foliage blooms, birds and insects emerge, and performance thrives.

It also showed how inventive artists and presenters can be given modest resources. The Stissing Center dates from 1915, and after several iterations (including a laundromat) and lying fallow for decades, was given an elegant modern renovation, reopening five years ago. It has a fairly compact stage—four dancers (Amanda Treiber, Mónica Lima, Giulia Faria, and Julian Donohue) and pianist Michael Scales filled the proscenium—but it didn’t feel small. The trick is choosing great repertory that fills the space yet stays within the constraints.

Catherine Tharin, a dance writer and scholar, programmed the event (as well as two programs later this year). This slate was curated by Diana Byer, who founded and ran New York Theatre Ballet for many years, stepping down recently. The works performed at Stissing proved a wonderful mix of the billed “masters”—Jerome Robbins, Martha Clarke, Richard Alston—plus young choreographer / dancers who may earn that moniker in the future: James Whiteside, Melissa Toogood, and dancers Treiber and Donohue. Scales played two musical interludes as well, making for a lively, packed 70-minute bill.

Mamborama, choreography by James Whiteside. Photo by Richard Termine,

courtesy of New York Theatre Ballet. Dancers: Amanda Treiber and Mónica Lima

in a 2022 performance at Florence Gould Hall

Byer is a renowned figure in the ballet world, and the dancers showed her Cecchetti style training, although not all of the pieces were strictly classical. The most balletic works were Robbins’ Rondo (with playful variations on pointe and big chainés and leaps) and Alston’s The Small Sonata, with dramatic archer poses and Amanda Treiber tenderly wrapping a leg around Julian Donahue—both radiant in their bejeweled, webby tunics. In Treiber’s Wind-Up, the women wore toe shoes as well, and Donahue joined them, creating playful, geometric shapes with a modern feel.

Martha Clarke’s dramatic flair marked Nocturne: wearing only a tulle skirt, head shrouded in gauze with eyeholes, Mónica Lima limped on, a defeated phantasm of a romantic ballerina. She covered her nakedness with her arms and skirt, trying to flap her vestigial wings, and collapsed. She untied the red ribbon from her neck, using it as a makeshift cane to hobble off. Haunting indeed, and a step beyond the proverbial dying swan. In Toogood’s A Study with Mónica, Lima knelt, palms flat on the stage, and drew her hands up her body and aloft, stretching keenly. Stillness was as important as movement, and precision key in a perfect low arabesque, arms levered in front.

The Small Sonata, choreography by Richard Alston. Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of

New York Theatre Ballet. Dancers: Amanda Treiber and Julian Donahue in a

2020 performance at Danspace Project

In Square the Circle choreographed by Donahue, the foursome wore sneakers and bright, sporty separates. The movement was equally bold and space-eating, with the dancers uniting in a kind of square dance section. It vied for the flashiest dance on the slate with James Whiteside’s Mamborama (excerpt), with Lima and Treiber in sparkly, cabaret-style tunics and on pointe, zazzing it up with humorous puppy paw hands, snapping and counting fingers, and jazzy rhythmic interpretations.

Departing the Stissing Center, we were offered old-fashioned boxes of popcorn for the road. What a nice gesture after a satisfying, dense, buffet of dance. Two more dance offerings follow: Seoul-Mate, Korean traditional and contemporary dance on June 2, and The Bang Group, featuring David Parker’s contemporary work filled with drama, wit, and rhythm, on Oct 4 & 5.