Dance Then & Now—Ballet at the Stissing Center

Mónica Lima, Elena Zahlmann, Kristina Shaw, Diana Byer, and
Julian Donahue in Private Angels. Photo: Patrick Trettenero

April promises spring, but winter clung on over the weekend; Columbia County got about half a foot of snow on April 12. So going to Stissing Center in Pine Plains for a Sunday afternoon matinee of Dance Then & Now, a program curated by Diana Byer, presented the chance to gather in a welcoming, vibrant venue and take in a varied ballet program. The works ranged from a 1951 duet by Agnes de Mille, Another Autumn (from Paint Your Wagon), to four contemporary pieces including several premieres.

The hour-long program ranged from experimental modern ballet to musical theater to satire. The latter, by Julian Donahue, titled Private Angels, was a site-specific premiere performed primarily on the auditorium floor, and partly on-stage (we were seated along the perimeter and on the mezzanine). It featured Donahue as a posh ballet taskmaster, controlling and effete—prancing, posing, swinging scythe-like arms, shooting icy glares at us, and eliciting guffaws, notably from a few enthusiastic children in the audience whose giggles were infectious.

Four women (Elena Zahlman, Kristina Shaw, Mónica Lima, and Byer) descended from the space’s four corners, facing one another and performing courtly, contained steps. Each woman took turns being partnered by Donahue, each duet progressing with different dynamics. It built to Lima’s section, when Donahue handled her with vigor, bordering on violence. Occasional piano music by Handel, played by Matteo Mangialetti, accompanied this slightly long but entertaining suite.

The bill led off with the premiere of Calandrelle, choreographed by William Whitener with music by Olivier Messiaen, in which Kristina Shaw hit crisp geometric shapes, bounced, tilted, pet her tutu, and spun with a knee bent. These jottings felt playful even while grounded in ballet. An Agnes de Mille duet from Paint Your Wagon was danced by Zahlmann and Donahue, with Mangialetti playing Frederick Loewe’s music. Though brief, we saw de Mille’s knack for distilling a burgeoning romance into a few key moments—the chaste wooing, and ensuing blossoming into affection and a side-by-side partnership. 

Stephen Pier’s premiere of A Conversation with Keyboard featured Lima and Shaw in elegant short black dresses trading ballet phrases in a rhythmic ebb and flow, and checking in with Mangialetti, playing music by Domenico Cimarosa. Lima and Donahue partnered in Isle of Skye, by Amanda Treiber, with recorded music by Mondrian Villega. Appropriately clad in sky blue costumes, they stretched into elongated lines and tossed in phrases of celebratory social dancing that evoked Scottish reels, perhaps a nod to the title.

All of these dances fit snugly and efficiently into the brief run time, a pleasing sampling of modern ballet that demonstrates the form’s continuing relevance and artistry. The dance programming, selected by Catherine Tharin, is just one genre among many featured at Stissing Center, which mounts a surprisingly robust season in the quietly simmering town of Pine Plains.

Martha Graham Dance Company at 100—Strong Dancers, Dwindling Graham

Xin Ying in Letter to Nobody. Photo: Brian Pollock

Martha Graham Dance Company performed its annual New York run at the Joyce this year, part of the troupe’s 100th anniversary celebration. It was another step in its evolution, a balance of Graham and contemporary choreography. Program A offered just a short bit of Martha, Act 2 of Clytemnestra (1958), which has all the hallmarks of high Graham—fantastic sets by Isamu Noguchi, fabulous costumes by Graham and Helen McGehee, unharmonious music by Halim El-Dabh—but tilts toward kitsch in the absence of the larger context. As Artistic Director Janet Eilber had informed us in her by now habitual, concise, pre-show comments, Agamemnon’s Ghost (Jai Perez) wears high gold platform shoes to indicate he’s in the afterworld, but it still feels like drag. We do get a solid sampling of Graham in the womens’ dancing—the yearning diagonal stretches and twists with cupped hands—and in the final solo by Lloyd Knight, with his repeated, self-flagellating hinges to the shoulder.

 Xin Ying in Clytemnestra. Photo: Isabella Pagano

Baye & Asa choreographed the world premiere of Cortege, to music by Jack Grabow. Eight dancers are hidden beneath a tarp, which slides off them. We hear a voiceover, including, “In times of extreme violence…” The dancers hit vignettes, evoking postures and gestures of torture and incarceration. They cluster, spasming, moving in bursts, giving animalistic Gaga vibes. A woman melts to the floor. Some don burlap vests; are they members or exiles? The movement is hyper controlled and precise, disturbing in its relentless, underlying terror, and undeniably beautiful.

Graham appears on film in the premiere of Letter to Nobody, by Xin Ying, who co-choreographed it with Mimi Yin. Ying, solo, channels Martha in front of a film segment of Graham’s Letter to the World, projected on a giant screen. Shot at an angle from above, it includes segments of social dance, and feels lighthearted; Graham is heard in a voiceover. Ying dances elegantly in flowing and graceful phrases, at one point kicking, swirling, and spinning repeatedly in her circle skirt. The film cuts to Graham fixing her enormous signature bun in front of a vanity. As she turns toward the camera, her face morphs into Ying’s. The effect is chilling, a demonstration of what AI can bring to dance theater, and a reminder that Graham’s heirs must carry on her legacy while always increasing the distance to her.

Cortege. Photo: Isabella Pagano

The program ended with Hofesh Schechter’s crowd pleaser, Cave (2022). In murky light, to a pulsing beat, 14 dancers move subtly at first, like a sea anemone. The dynamic builds, the group peels apart, still beating in sync, throwing in some Irish step dancing for good measure. Golden light hits them from the side, and they continue a trance-like surrender to the beat. It ends in a highly-controlled frenzy, the dancers writhing and throbbing in ecstasy. 

It’s yet another manifestation of the versatile and technically limitless group of dancers that comprise the Martha Graham Company, and that Graham’s elemental technique serves as a foundation for nearly all genres of dance. (That said, Ohad Naharin's Gaga felt more present in Cortege and Cave than Graham style.) The company performed two other programs which both offered proportionately more Graham to other choreographers' work, so the program I saw was an outlier. Graham's mythology-based repertory can now read as melodramatic and campy, but the company must continue to present this canon, along with her formal work, to share its primacy and essence.