LA Dance Project, Evolving

Hearts & Arrows. Photo: Laurent Phillippe

The LA Dance Project, under Benjamin Millepied's artistic direction, continues to evolve and move forward, while giving annual performances in New York so we can see what they're up to. With Millepied's full attention, the company recently announced that it will renovate a space in LA's arts district to house headquarters and a small theater. Additionally, New York City Ballet alum Carla Körbes and Janie Taylor joined the company, at least for a brief period (Körbes has accepted a teaching position at Indiana University). The troupe performs at the Joyce Theater through this weekend with two programs.

The June 17th performance I caught included two works by Millepied, plus Yag by Ohad Naharin. (Unfortunately, In Silence We Speak, a duet for Körbes and Janie Taylor by Millepied, was repaced with his Orpheus Highway.) In both of Millepied's works, the movement is a contemporary version of ballet that takes a more relaxed, muscular approach to its basic vocabulary; the dancers wear either jazz shoes or sneakers. At times, the casual formality is reminiscent of Jerome Robbins, as well as some work by Justin Peck.

Hearts & Arrows has striking b&w costumes by Taylor, who has clearly hit her stride as a designer after retiring from NYCB. PUBLIQuartet, a string ensemble, plays live Philip Glass' Mishima. The movement flows easily, elastically, with a hand diminishing the energy of a phrase. The five sections build in dynamic, crescendoing in big movements that feel fun and liberating. Formations include spiraling flowers and chains, framed by four lighting towers; Roderick Murray designed the lighting.

Hearts & Arrows. Photo: Laurent Phillippe

Janie Taylor was featured in Orpheus Highway, a premiere to Steve Reich music played live. Taylor has always danced with a coolness and distance, but there's an shy intensity to her that remains intriguing. Millepied utilizes just enough gesture to imply key plot points from the myth. Live dancers are backgrounded by filmed elements; the moves sometimes coincide, and a different lead dancers in the film gives it a certain removed feel. Millepied contributed not only choreography, but co-lighting design (with Jim French), video direction, and costume design (street-like clothes). While it doesn't break new ground genre-wise, you get a sense of the American West and his company's place in it.

It's interesting to see Naharin's work on a company other than Batsheva (Now defunct Cedar Lake is one other example). Not surprisingly, it feels different than on his native dancers—less innate and unconscious. In Yag, the same basic story revolving around a family is told—verbally and movement-wise—from different points of view. A luminous orange panel occupies a prime spot center stage; at first, it's difficult to tell whether it's a portal or door; positive or negative space. A man wearing all brown (turtle neck, jacket, pants) and eye glasses transfers his costume to a woman, piece by piece, disrobing behind the panel. The dance is Naharin's slippery, alien gaga style, which is handled well by LADP.

The company is composed of some of the super-skilled, ballet-trained generalists that abound today and could likely handle most anything thrown their way. Sandwiched by the two Millepied dances, Yag was a nice bumper and completely antithetical to a classically-based style.