Hubbard Street at the Joyce Theater

Alexandria Best in Coltrane's Favorite Things. Photo: Michelle Reid

New York is considered the world’s dance capital by many, boasting countless companies, choreographers, and dancers. And yet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, after 46 years and currently led by Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, sits atop American repertory troupes. The versatility required of the dancers cannot be overestimated; they are technically skilled, stylistically flexible artists with great mental toughness. The current company roster stands out for its diversity, both racial and in body type, with an unusual number of large men. 

Its 2024 Joyce run comprised two programs; the one I saw on Mar 21 featured work by Lar Lubovitch, Rena Butler, and Azsure Barton. Coltrane’s Favorite Things, by Lubovitch, is danced beneath a huge rendition of Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, and set to a free-ranging performance by Coltrane of Richard Rodgers’ often cloying tune, from The Sound of Music. Per the program note, the choreographer aimed to juxtapose “Coltrane’s sheets of sound with Pollock’s field of action,” linking them through dance.

The performers wear sporty pieces in shades drawn from the beiges, blacks, and whites that might have dripped onto them from the suspended expressionist painting. Indeed, at times they dart and jiggle like Pollock’s paint drips, though with Lubovitch’s signature curving arms and graceful interlocked passages. Coltrane’s music indeed was sheet-like, or in another rock music term, wall-like—so much so that it dominated at moments, overshadowing the dancers, who split off into smaller groups for short duets or trios. Shota Miyoshi notably nailed the requisite refinement, split-second timing, and occasional abandon demanded by Lubovitch’s style.

Abdiel Figueroa Reyes, Shota Miyoshi, and Cyrie Topete in Aguas Que Van, Quieren Volver
Photo by Michelle Reid

Miyoshi danced with Cyrie Topete and Abdiel Figueroa Reyes in Aguas Que Van, Quieren Volver (2023) by Butler. Often moving as a three-headed being, they posed gymnastically and arrayed extremities to create new shapes. Every so often, one would slink off stage on all fours, seemingly ejected but always returning. (The title means "waters that go want to return.") Butler’s style makes ample use of the torso, rippling or flexing, convex or concave, with isolated movements and marked formations that recall Mats Van Ek. The music comprised a varied selection, including songs by Miguel Angel and Jane May. Hogan McLaughlin designed the geometric panel and illusion bodysuits which, with the chiaroscuro lighting by Julie E. Ballard, felt like a glimpse of a dystopic future.

Barton’s return to patience (2015, with the HSDC premiere in 2023) best fit HSDC. The company, wearing the same pale jumpsuits (by Fritz Masten), was spread evenly over the stage, reminiscent of Balanchine’s Serenade. As Caroline Shaw’s contemplative Gustave Le Gray played, they tilted nearly indetectably to each side as an ensemble. Cue Balanchine again, as they all opened their parallel feet into first position at once. Barton pulls ballet into her style, in which energy flows organically and satisfyingly, but she’ll tweak something slightly—an extended foot can be the epitome of balletic precision, but then it sickles just a bit, an absolute no-no in the classical canon but for the same reason, intriguing when intentional.

Every element in a Barton work is considered and well executed. The immersive vanilla lighting and white marley stage design by Nicole Pearce set an otherwordly atmosphere, as did the uniformly clad, evenly spaced dancers. Barton always considers the entire stage picture, which contributes to her ubiquity in repertory over the last couple decades. And she trusts audiences to discern even the most subtle details to add texture to the more dramatic phrases and shapes.

Hubbard Street remains one of the country’s top rep companies. Interestingly, New York has been less consistently represented in this area, although the recent rise of Gibney Company offers a solid choice. Before that, the Walmart fortune-backed Cedar Lake flashed as brightly as a bolt of lightning, and sadly, vanished just as fast. The Juilliard dance division can act like a top-notch rep company, with performances each season by its preternaturally gifted students who then graduate and populate troupes such as Hubbard Street and Gibney, plus myriad other New York groups.

But even the originally single-choreographer companies, by dint of the passage of time, are becoming repertory vehicles. Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, José Limón, Trisha Brown—all must diversify in order to survive. The choices they make not only recontextualize their founders’ visions, but power the inexorable evolution of modern dance.

New York Notebook—Dorrance and Ailey

Josette Wiggan-Freund and Joseph Wiggan in the Nutcracker

There are some compositions that are basically siren songs for dance makers, which simply must, at some point, be choreographed to, rocky shore be damned. There’s Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Ravel’s Bolero, and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, which suffers most in redundancy due to the work’s seasonal nature. Over the past couple of weeks, I caught the last two treated by, respectively, Lar Lubovitch for Ailey and Michelle Dorrance/Hannah Heller/Josette Wiggan-Freund for Dorrance Dance. 

The Nut, a Joyce commission, is a joyful, hip, brief addition to the canon. (Its official title is a paragraph, not likely to be printed in full—a wink acknowledging that it will be referred to as the Nut.) Mostly tap danced, with some sneaker-shod street moves, it uses Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn’s “Nutcracker Suite,” a jazzy, brass-heavy, uptempo selective rendition that dares you to sit still. The abbreviated party scene quickly introduces Clara (Leonardo Sandoval)—tall, awkward, with childlike wonder, in a teal chiffon dress. Her parents are real-life siblings and tap power duo Joseph Wiggan and Josette Wiggan-Freund in a killer, swingy half-waistcoat (costumes by Andrew Jordan). Drossy’s arrival signals the shift into fantasy, where the toys and rodents grow, and the rats‚—led by a crisp, snazzy Heller—multiply and intimidate the humans, throwing what look like cheese balls.

Martha Graham Dance Company—Sacred/Profane

Leslie Andrea Williams and Lorenzo Pagano in Embattled Garden. Photo: Melissa Sherwood

It's remarkable to see the Martha Graham Dance Company standing relatively strong, 92 years after its founding. It has survived the death of its founder, an ensuing legal battle over her creative output, moving its headquarters, then flooding which destroyed much of its costumes and sets, and the inexorable company turnover as time moves on. Yet at City Center on April 11, as part of Sacred/Profane, the company and its supporters gathered to celebrate its survival, and indeed growth, albeit as a limb off of a big trunk.

So often Graham's classic works are accompanied by taped music, and the recordings tend to sound tinny and worn, old as they are. So it was a pleasure that the opening performance of Embattled Garden was elevated by the use of live music, written by Carlos Surinach, and performed by the Mannes Orchestra. Noguchi's sets remain singularly sculptural and functional; here the downstage piece becomes a safe harbor and a lookout point, the upstage the pseudonymous garden of Eden. The young cast of four (Anne O'Donnell, Lloyd Knight, Leslie Andrea Williams, and Lorenzo Pagano) was well-balanced; the men look as strong as the women, who in this company have often drawn the gaze. 

Laurel Dalley Smith and Ari Mayzick in Histoire. Photo: Melissa Sherwood

The evening marked the premiere of Lucinda Childs' Histoire, an expansion of a 1999 duet to music by Krzysztof Knittel. Laurel Dalley Smith and Ari Mayzick perform the duet, a kind of abstracted tango in which they face one another, arms angled like goalposts, and move about the stage at a fixed distance, as if there was a force field between them. Childs' signature arabesque spins and extended-leg lunges punctuate the dance. Knittel's synthesized, recorded score evokes the bandoneon that soon accompanies the next sections, playing two of Astor Piazzolla's songs. (They will be familiar to Paul Taylor audiences from his Piazzolla Caldera.) 

Three other couples, in grey, populate the stage; the couples' interactions are more physical and in keeping with how tango is usually done. But there is tension between the passionate, warm music and the rectilinear, formal attitude of Childs' choreography. In a sense, this sense of tension is not unlike when you watch traditional tango, in which sensuality simmers beneath a social veneer.

Leslie Andrea Williams and So Young An in
Legend of Ten. Photo: Ani Collier

Lar Lubovitch was awarded the Martha Graham Award, which, as Artistic Director Janet Eilber joked in a brief onstage presentation, Graham would never give to another choreographer while she was alive. Lubovitch created The Legend of Ten to Brahms' Quintet for Piano and Strings in F minor. In the first sections, the choreographer's signature fluid, looping movement is on full display; a repeating hook features the dancers tap-stepping and rolling their heads side to side, arms rippling softly. They form various patterns, shapes, and tableaus, which Lubovitch excels at. 

In the work's later movements, the dynamic becomes more percussive. Folk steps strengthen the sense of community. The dancers face inward, form a circle, and hold hands, stomping and kicking their legs back. They gesture as if strewing seeds, and mock clap and stamp their feet, cossack-style. This sense is underscored by their elegant boots; all genders wear the same elegant blouses, tights, and obi costumes in pewter, designed by L. Isaac with Naomi Luppescu. 

No one can match Lubovitch in creating beautiful, seamless movement. The shift in Legend from this pure beauty into a version of a functioning group, be they workers or soldiers, provides some welcome narrative structure. Incidentally, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company will perform at the Joyce next week and celebrate its relatively young 50th season; the Graham dancers will dance Legend of Ten in a guest spot. 

ABT—Dark the Soul, Bright the Stars

Julie Kent & Marcelo Gomes in Othello. Photo: Gene Schiavone

We love ballet because it can defy mortality. The grace and ease with which the pros do the most difficult steps refutes gravity and the way most of us clump along, meat bags with a few muscles and bones. On the other hand, many of the full-length ballets in ABT's current Met Opera House season underscore the frailties and downfalls of being all too human.

Lar Lubovitch's Othello is revived every so often in part to showcase a powerful male dancer at the peak of his powers, and ABT has no better embodiment than Marcelo Gomes. Although the role was set on Desmond Richardson, it seems built for Gomes. As the curtain rises, simply sitting on his throne, clutching its arms, head bowed, he commands attention. The muscles on his bronze breastplate may not be his, but we don't doubt the power implied (we're also familiar with Gomes' strength).  

Xiomara Reyes, soon galloping into the sunset, in Rodeo. Photo: Gene Schiavone

It never hurts to have a good tale behind a story ballet, and Shakespeare's deeply troubling examination of loyalty and deceit reveals the darkest side of man's nature. James Whiteside made for a believably sinister Iago, slithering and scything his way around the stage's perimeter like an angry shadow. Julie Kent's Desdemona is effectively naive, and Stella Abrera, as Emilia, perfunctorily foreboding. The addition of Bianca (Misty Copeland) and Cassio (Joseph Gorak), who become vehicles for betrayal, flesh out the stage action while clouding the narrative. Still, these two magnetic dancers have some of the best sections of dancing, unchained from the text. The white scarf becomes a searing emblem of love; the more hands that touch it, the more tainted it becomes as a symbol of devotion. 

Agnes De Mille's Rodeo, on the other hand, begins with its lead cowgirl, Xiomara Reyes, longing for the camaraderie of the posse of cowboys, but being ignored until she accedes to at least some feminine conventions. Xiomara Reyes is retiring this season, but her lead performance makes that hard to believe. She's as sassy and tomboyish as ever, in this, one of her best dramatic vehicles. It highlights a buoyant sense of humor that can be buried in formal ballets, albeit where she excels technically. She will be missed in this role. James Whiteside danced the role of the cowboy who moves from buddy to beau, including a lighthearted tap segment.

Isabella Boylston as Giselle. Photo: MIRA

Giselle as well ponders the foibles of the heart, both figuratively and literally. Albrecht falls for, and guilelessly deceives, the frail Giselle, who after death is consigned to join the Wilis (basically, ghosts of unmarried women who taunt men and make them dance to death). Certain ballerinas are born to perform the role of Giselle, and Isabella Boylston is one of them. Her size, her ballon, and flexibility all contribute to a fine characterization. But it is her sublime delicacy that distinguished her rendition in May 23's matinee. When she lifted her leg in an arabesque early in the Act II duet with Alex Hammoudi (Albrecht), the movement was barely perceptible, floating upward steadily, like a feather on the slightest pulse of wind. Battus resembled the beating of a hummingbird's wings. Other dancers—particularly Russians, it seems—milk the drama more, or emphasize athleticism, but Boylston gives a nuanced, quietly magical performance free of histrionics.

Hammoudi, a soloist, is maturing into his princely physique. He is on the way to becoming a much needed leading man of a large size. His long legs only accentuate the height of his grand jetes, and he can finesse the details in traveling steps with beats. It can't hurt to play against the company's finest character dancer, Roman Zhurbin, who succeeded in bringing some empathy to the beleaguered second fiddle, Hilarion. This young cast supplied rewards of a different kind than expected from the company's headliners—a variety of stars populating ABT's galaxy. 

A company is always in transition, but it feels as though ABT is going through more changes than in recent memory, with three principal women retiring (Kent, Herrera, and Reyes), a recuperating David Hallberg out for the season, the oft-cast Polina Semionova injured, and young dancers being groomed for promotions. So while there is Gomes, a fully matured artist in complete command of the repertory, we watch for greatness to emerge from surprising places. 

Lar Lubovitch's Cheeky Side

Alessandra Ferri & Tobin Del Cuore. Photo: Phyllis McCabe

Lar Lubovitch's choreography is so flowing and elegant that to serve it up in a kitschy vehicle such as Artemis in Athens is, well, refreshing. This production premiere takes as its bones a 2003 commission for a paean to Greek culture given by ABT, with gauzy toga-inspired costumes and Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes as leads. 


This week, at the Joyce, no less a (retired from ABT) prima ballerina than Alessandra Ferri danced the lead, but instead of a toga, she wore Naomi Luppescu's saucy interpretation of a Girl Scout uniform, in keeping with the entire cast and even the pit band, Le Train Bleu, looking like dutiful scouts rehearsing a march (but sounding grown-up, edgy, and expressive playing Christopher Theofanidis' composition). You got the sense that Lubovitch had watched Wes Anderson's Moonlight Kingdom not long before sitting down with the designer to sketch out ideas. 

Tobin Del Cuore & Alessandra Ferri . Photo: Phyllis McCabe

A cheeky intro given by a fresh-faced scout with a clipboard alluded to the Athens in the title as the town in Georgia, which would explain, in part, the change to an American woodsy milieu, populated by roving pine trees. Despite her khaki uniform, Ferri appeared as evanescent and goddess-like as ever, lithe, buoyant, and flashing her gorgeously arched feet in Girl Scout issued pointe shoes. Tobin Del Cuore was her foil, Akteon, transforming into a faun (in a skillfully toned unitard with smart white lapels) after his BSA uniform was swiftly disbanded, like Shaq ripping off his sweats. The tall Del Cuore lifted Ferri as if she were weightless. Clasping his hands in hoof-like fists, he bounded through, appropriately, stag leaps. Hunted down by a scout troop armed with bows (whose arcs served Lubovitch's fondness for curves). Akteon's image was immortalized in the heavens, twinkling in a starry sky. It was a bit of enchanting, whimsical fun. 

The Black Rose. Photo: Phyllis McCabe

The company also danced the premiere of The Black Rose, a twist on The Sleeping Beauty, whose score Scott Marshall quoted generously in his collaged score. (He mixed the hallucinogenic music for Lubovitch's renowned Mens' Stories.) Mucuy Bolles danced the central character opposite Reid Barthelme, who is blinded and crippled by the heartless Barton Cowperthwaite (sinister, roguish, and knife-limbed), who also impregnates Bolles, and hilariously chases after her newborn baby with oversized cutlery. 

A group of party-goers formed the chorus, swirling and flowing in Lubovitch's signature cursive movement. Barthelme morphed into a 60's mod-like chap with Lennon glasses and a ruffled shirt (costumes by Fritz Masten). While this dance thumbs its nose at tradition while drawing from it, its goth undertones paint a dark picture of humanity. Together, the two short dances make for a welcome respite from the bounty of mostly serious dance prevalent in New York. 

DEMO: Artists' Laboratory

Herman Cornejo & Robert Fairchild in Concerto 622. Courtesy of Works & Process at the Guggenheim/Jacklyn Meduga

Gone are the days of mourning a great dancer's retirement from New York City Ballet. Now, such an occasion can bring experimentation, broad collaboration, the unboxing of creative tendencies. We expect interesting things from Wendy Whelan, who takes her leave after this season to further her collaborations with young choreographers. And look at Damian Woetzel, who runs the Vail International Dance Festival and who brought his project, DEMO, to Guggenheim Works & Process this past week. 

He ran the show like a consummate professional, speaking eloquently about the project's simple mission: "Things I Like," following organizing principles such as science or musicality. Then he gathers like-minded (that is, open minded) friends who happen to be stellar artists, be they dancers, musicians, poets, scientists. Then he combines them together in short performances, creating individual nuggets strung on a common cord. 

It helps that his friends happen to also be superstars. The evening began with a duet by Fang-Yi Sheu, perhaps the finest performer of Martha Graham's oeuvre in the company's long history, and Herman Cornejo, a current rock star of ABT, standing with his back to us, emanating warm energy in that magical way he does. They performed Sheu's Pheromones to Philip Glass' pensive Façades, tracing one another's auras with their faces or palms, increasing in amplitude and speed until they tumbled across the stage in artful heaps. 

Fang-Yi Sheu & Cornejo with Claire Chase on flute.
Courtesy of Works & Process at the Guggenheim/Jacklyn Meduga

Sheu joined Lil Buck, jookin's premier attraction (hampered by a sprained ankle contained in a walking boot), after he improvised a solo to Claire Chase (a MacArthur fellow) on platinum flute, playing Edgard Varèse's fitful, at times shrill music. While it was game of Buck to even perform—an ankle injury caused him to bow out of last week's Fall for Dance al fresco opener at the Delacorte—his rippling arms and robotic head offered little new. But when Sheu boldly braced herself upside-down on the chair on which Buck sat, and planked her body across his lap, the interest ratcheted up several notches. 

Some musical segments pushed the form both structurally and geographically. Sandeep Das, on tabla, took up a self-imposed challenge of following a 15-beat phrase cut in half: 7.5. He tapped it out on his tabla while Woetzel egged him on, clapping heartily if not 100% of the time on the unconventional count. Cristina Pato played the Galician bagpipe, evoking music deriving from countries close to the equator, and less the upright Scottish mode (although Woetzel immediately began his Union Jack march when she mixed a few bars into her piece). She returned to play the piano while Logan Frances Kruger of the Limon Company danced a Mazurka excerpt, emphasizing weightiness and circular musicality.

Fairchild had begun rehearsals on Monday for An American in Paris, which is slated for Broadway. He and Woetzel had thrown together a rendition of "Ballin' the Jack," from a video of Gene Kelly. No doubt Fairchild recalls at times the athletic, jazzy Kelly, even in the most classical of repertory. Here, he was harnessed by the small, fan-shaped stage, but we got a sense of his exciting musical theater potential. And it's conceivable that he could continue on Broadway long after his departs the acute technical demands of ballet. Or, he could easily slip into work by, say, Lar Lubovitch, who choreographed the duet from Concerto Six Twenty-Two, danced at the Guggenheim by Fairchild and Cornejo. While Cornejo's preternaturally organic movement style is more naturally suited to the looping, fluid style, both men exude the quiet star power that characterizes Lubovitch's dancers.

The duet completed the last portion of the evening—on the theme of Monumentum, or remembrance—rounded out by a performance of Stravinsky's desolate, fractured Elégie by Johnny Gandelsman on violin, poet Elizabeth Alexander reading three vivid selections, and Chase playing Du Yun's An Empty Garlic (excerpt) on bass flute—as she described it, a big piece of plumbing. She will play the full work at The Kitchen in the near future.

The evening had the feel of an artist's salon, despite the absence of the previously billed Carla Korbes and Tiler Peck, and some performances were more rehearsed and polished than others, but you could imagine the ideas floating about, colliding, mixing, producing new ideas, with a little coaxing and orchestration by Woetzel, flourishing splendidly in his said retirement. 

Saltimbanques Inspire Picasso and Lubovitch

Picasso's Les Saltimbanques, 1905

What inspires an artist to create a new work, especially after 44 years of making dances? Lar Lubovitch found inspiration in Picasso's painting of a circus troupe, Les Saltimbanques, paired with Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor performed live by the Bryant Park Quartet. The result—Transparent Things, which premiered in the company's run at Florence Gould Hall on November 14—fits snugly within Lubovitch's oeuvre of lushly romantic, lyrical dances. Also on the gala bill were his sharper, frenetic 2011 work, Crisis Variations, featuring the dynamic Katarzyna Skarpetowska, and the aromatic Little Rhapsodies, a virtuosic 2007 male trio.

Leg lines a-resonating. Photo: Rose Eichenbaum

Attila Joey Csiki, as the lead tumbler in Transparent Things, wears the money-shot costume—a pastel hued, diamond-print, well-fitting tunic, created by Reed Barthelme. Portrayed as a bit of an outsider, Csiki gamboled with the ensemble and then danced alone in a melancholic funk. The troupe included two couples: Skarpetowska with Reed Luplau, and Clifton Brown with Laura Rutledge, along with Brian McGinnis. Lubovitch works with a complete stage picture in mind—curving legs aloft resonate between pairs, or the group snaps, seemingly spontaneously, into one of his signature tableaux.

Attila Joey Csiki wearing The Costume. Photo: Steven Schreiber

The costumes were obviously key, patterned directly after the color schemes laid out by Picasso. But the gap between the resulting designs for the men and the women were like day and night. It seems that all of Barthelme's energy went toward the mens' tunics (other than Brown's white leotard and high-waisted grey pants that were somehow unflattering to this most Apollonian of dancers). The women, Rutledge in particular, looked like someone had grabbed the lost and found box and pulled out whatever would remotely fit, at least within Picasso's palette.

It's not news, but Lubovitch attracts first-rate dancers. Brown, long a star with Ailey, here favors the subdued facet of his onstage persona and melts into the ensemble even as he inevitably does a lion's share of lifting and guy stuff. Luplau's dancing, particularly his allegro passages in Rhapsodies, reminds me a little of the effervescence and precision of Sean Curran in his prime, no small task. And Skarpetowska, against the odds in this troupe of male peacocks (that's a compliment), has become a  locus, with her completely fearless approach, both emotionally and physically.

Toward the end, the dancers crawled among the string quartets' legs and instruments, underscoring the pleasures of having live music (although some technical problems with mic noise were a distraction). It felt like the end but wasn't. That came when the troupe formed a line, arms linked behind backs, and collectively descended into splits, a final reminder of the nature of these troubadors.

Lar Lubovitch: Stars Abound, 11/23/11

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Lar Lubovitch: two programs at Baryshnikov Arts Center.

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There seems to have been more movement than usual among top dancers in many of the city’s dance companies. One of the lucky recipients of this instability, as seen in two programs at the Baryshnikov Arts Center from November 9-20, is the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. The company’s dancers always impress; Lubovitch’s choreography seeps into his dancers’ bodies and souls, and we feel that. But this season’s additions include Clifton Brown, an Ailey perennial and perhaps one of that company’s biggest stars in the past decade, who now holds the title at Ailey of “Guest Artist”; Elisa Clark, late of Mark Morris Dance Group; and Carlos Lopez, until recently an ABT soloist.

Lar Lubovitch Dance Company “Crisis Variations.” Pictured: Katarzyna Skarpetowska and Brian McGinnis. Photo by Paula Lobo.

Lubovitch has been taken for granted in recent years perhaps in part because of his constant quiet presence and his durability; his company performs seasons regularly, although a change in venue seems to be perennial. The totality of his choreographic skill and craft is unsurpassed. It can be stupendously beautiful—the flowing curves, seamless organic shapes, tableaux of breathtaking gorgeousness, and the essential connecting movement. But lest you think he’s incapable of doing anything else, see Crisis Variations, his recent premiere. Given Katarzyna Skarpetowska’s powerful dramatic skills, you can understand how he was coaxed to address crisis. She seemed in a constant state of collapse, her joints folding mercilessly, giving in to gravity’s pull. Helpless in the face of catastrophe, she was eventually subsumed by the group.

Histoire du Soldat: Stravinsky, Cabaret-style, 3/31/11

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Histoire du Soldat: Stravinsky, Cabaret-style, by Lar Lubovitch and Le Train Bleue at Galapagos.

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Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier's Tale). Pictured L-R: Brian Ellingsen (double bass), Tim Fain (violin), Attila Joey Csiki, Nicole Corea, Reid Bartelme. Photo by Steven Schreiber.

Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale, from 1918), a two-performance, one-evening event atGalapagos in Dumbo last week, was one of those only-in-New-York performances that restores one’s faith in humanity, even on a wicked sleety night. This hour-long work by Stravinsky was assembled into a cabaret-scaled production by conductor Ransom Wilson, with an orchestra of seven (the excellent new ensemble Le Train Bleu), three actors, and choreography by Lar Lubovitch for Reid Bartelme, Nicole Corea, and Attila Joey Csiki. Soldat recounts the story of a soldier who, returning home, makes a deal with the devil, resulting in amusing consequences and solemn regrets.