Wheeldon's Beguiling Winter's Tale

Photo: Karolina Kuras, courtesy of National Ballet of Canada

Christopher Wheeldon is becoming very skilled at total theater craft, as evidenced in his production of The Winter's Tale performed last week by the National Ballet of Canada. It was the sole dance fare in the 2016 Lincoln Center Festival, at the Koch Theater. Of course, the still relatively young Wheeldon (43) has been an ace choreographer for years by now, with many plotless and themed ballets in company repertories around the world, with a lion's share for New York City Ballet. 

He conquered Broadway with the charmer An American in Paris, for which he won a Tony. The tools used there—moving large set pieces, employing video projections successfully, quickly crafting deft characterizations—were put to use in Winter's Tale to create a quick-paced, unexpectedly entertaining rendition of Shakespeare's story. He is able to focus on all elements of the production and not simply the dancing, although that remains the keystone. 

The show's length, around 2:45, demands a lot of choreography, and much of it is lyrical and shapely with inventive touches and some contortions as well (in particular, a lift by the young lovers in which Rui Huang basically folds in half as Skylar Campbell cradles her and they kiss. Ouch.) He generally favors outstretched diagonal lines, such as in the photo below, and free flowing phrases.

Skylar Campbell and Rui Huang. Photo: Karolina Kuras, courtesy of the National Ballet of Canada

With the exception of the petulant, brutal Leontes (Guillaume Côté, fierce and magnetic), the characters are subtly delineated. The main female role turns out not to be Hermione (Sonia Rodgriquez) but Paulina, head of the queen's household, danced incisively and with pathos by former Bolshoi member Svetlana Lunkina.  

Two tall portals move about the stage frequently. In one scene, a seemingly endless staircase foreshadows the impending death of the boy prince Mamilius, who descends it. Four statues that appear to be life casts sit on pedestals; uncovered, they imply pomp, and covered, stasis or death. The show-stopper is Crowley's magnificent and life-like tree in the second act, bedecked with ornaments. A flutist plays beneath it as the townsfolk spread blankets and climb ladders to add jewels to the tree's branches. An ensemble dance includes folk motifs of the Slavic sort, such as folded arms and flexed feet.

Bob Crowley's elegant costumes flatter; the men wear pieced tunic coats or kilt-like skirts over tights, connoting a tribal feel. The women are given sleek, flaring dresses with chenille vests to denote the outdoors. Huang and Campbell as the princess and prince injected joy and lightness into their lengthy duets and solos. The score, by Jody Talbot, is lyrical and perfectly pleasant, with dramatic swells and Gershwinesque horns. Perhaps with further viewings, notable musical themes might emerge. But it's a solid ballet with good bones, and a notable entry into the full-length canon.
  

National Ballet of China Shows Its Breadth

Yu Xuejiao and cast. Photo: Stephanie Berger 

A question recurs with regularity—why do we watch ballet? Is it for story, classical form, innovation of the genre, or musical elucidation? In the case of National Ballet of China's The Peony Pavilion, at the Koch as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, it seems to be for at least the first three reasons, which also makes the two-hour ballet a confusing mix.

This production, with adaptation and direction by Li Liuyi and choreography by Fei Bo, premiered in 2008 as a highly reduced version of what can be a 20-hour opus. We are grateful for the savings of 18 hours, but in the course of trimming it, the fragments and threads left to tell a complicated, layered tale aren't adequate. But what lingers in the memory are the striking sets and scenography by Michael Simon. A suspended square platform that raises, tilts, and transforms into a mirror. A giant fallen tree, massive crumpled peonies. Snake-like brushstrokes—ink black and neon—on the cyc. Emi Wada's gorgeous costumes—notably featuring wide-legged jumpsuits for the women, and scarf-hem dresses—are appealingly chic, although frequently obscure the expressiveness of the dancers' legs. 

Ma Xiadong, Zhu Yan, and Yu Xuejiao in The Peony Pavillion. Photo: Stephanie Berger

In a sense, Fei Bo's choreography becomes a secondary element in the ballet. His main concern seems to be an elegant line and an array of primarily feminine, never ugly gestures. In many full-length works, ballet can be both the subject and the medium. Many productions include ballroom scenes or international pageants during which the performers dance as the activity at hand. At other moments, dance conveys emotion, becoming the primary language for expressing love, anguish, camaraderie, sadness. In Peony, we see some of the latter, but it is often using standard ballet-glam vocabulary—arabesques, split lifts, a coyly poised foot. In one passage, the man embraces a woman, enfolding their arms in escalating hugging gestures. Perhaps the most literal of such expressions, it moves from evocative to sappy with each repetition.

A scene of rowdy peasants is an example of the dance-as-subject-matter ilk. The (mostly) men carouse, act jaunty, and hack around, pulling the language toward descriptive rather than metaphorical, which soon follows when shadows—silver cloak clad men—waft around the periphery, setting a supernatural aura.

The Peony Pavilion. Photo: Stephanie Berger

In the final act, the wedding scene, the corps' women—wearing red scarf dresses and pointe shoes—step and lunge into forced arches, drawing their parallel palms toward their faces, as if kissing an invisible box. The move to me conveys revolution, inexorable change, collectivism, but not necessarily a romantic gesture. They repeat the step, traveling at length, joined by bare-chested men, as the four main characters weave in and out. The music crescendoes and the lighting blazes in warm hues. After the previous frenetic and confusing panoply of scenes, it's as if the director decided that the finale would be an audience pleaser even if it took all the bombast he could muster. 

Lu Di and Zhang Jian in Red Detachment. Photo: Stephanie Berger

The NBC's second program, The Red Detachment of Women, is stylistically coherent, with its own mime system and use of ballet in a strangely logical way. This 1964 ballet, choreographed by Li Chengxiang, Jiang Zuhui, and Wang Xixian is an ideological and surprisingly feminist statement, based on a previous film, produced in the People's Republic of China. As it has been performed through the decades, political systems have come and gone, while our perception of the ballet can be ironic, even kitschy—as it is perceived now—or instructive, as it must have felt in the 60s. Either way, from the reaction of the heavily Chinese audience at the Koch, it continues to stir feelings of patriotism. (An excerpt was recently performed at Fall for Dance.)

Photo: Stephanie Berger

The ballet follows the path of Qionghua, a peasant (I saw the excellent Lu Na in the role), from slavedom to leading a female military regiment (which is given the juiciest ballet sections). This parable for the country's course is not exactly subtle, nor is the entire ballet, which allows it to be understood quite clearly. Gestures such as raised fists, or a hand pressing down, plus a firm head nod read clearly as power and affirmation. Many of the dance sequences are performed with weapons, most memorably a stunning, endless rapid-fire stage crossing of split leaps by the company, rifles held as if sighting a target. 

Zhang Jian and company. Photo: Stephanie Berger

While ballet was largely banned during the 60s in China as a Western symbol of decadence, this work was permitted since it advanced approved values. Ballet—plus a little martial arts and arms-wielding—could be interpreted as a great physical achievement, a claim to patriotism, apart from its value as a nuanced interpretive art. Also, there are no traditional male/female duets, nor tutus or other emblems of Romanticism. The women wear either silk tops and pants (the "peasants" and bourgeoisie, or grey or blue army uniforms of shorts and tunics, with leg warmers and matching toe shoes, and a standard hair bob. The lithe dancers make convincing soldiers, devoid of Romantic ballet's typical female supplicating expressions and deferential body language. The pointe shoe and the arabesque remain as the form's torch bearers.

Ma Yunhong created the stage designs, from gloomy slave prison to utopian coconut grove, complete with a projected sunrise and blue sky. The music, credited to six composers, is anthemic, bombastic, and yes, patriotic. One wonders how some of the numerous elders in the audience felt while viewing fare on which they were raised. Indeed, a nearby man began talking toward the stage during a number, as if transported to another time and place. He was perhaps acting out what some felt, and others of us could only imagine.

David Hallberg, Home Again

Gillian Murphy & David Hallberg in Cinderella.
Photo: Gene Schiavone

It's been a year since we've seen principal dancer David Hallberg perform with ABT, as he began dancing with the Bolshoi and splits his time between Moscow and New York. I guess we should feel lucky that he keeps one elegant foot here, even if it means a reduced spring ABT season workload and no fall/winter New York dates. It would be unthinkable to lose him completely.

In any case, it's wonderful to see him again in well-suited leads in Cinderella and Giselle. He is a natural-born prince (despite—because of?—his South Dakota provenance), with his statuesque height, noble profile, blond locks, and his innate hauteur. In his months with the Bolshoi, he has added welcome upper body strength to make overhead ballerina presses look easy, particularly with the sparrow-sized Alina Cojocaru in last Saturday evening's Giselle (he stepped in for an ailing Herman Cornejo), but also in the case of the substantially taller Polina Semionova earlier in the week.

In Cinderella, he confidently lifted Gillian Murphy above his head and gracefully descended a set of stairs. He has burnished other elements of his partnering studies—the feather-soft placing of the ballerina back on point, firmly gripping her waist as she tilts downward in arabesque, arranging his gaze to complement hers. It's somewhat ironic that the better partner a man is, the more he disappears, but in a good way.

Hallberg in Giselle. Photo: Gene Schiavone

Hallberg's demeanor is less that of an innocent youth now, and grounded with more maturity and intent. When he ponders his fate, it reads as concerned instead of unclear. And his technique remains paradigmatic, amplified through an emphasis of certain details. A leg held at 90º for an added second or two projects into infinity through his gloriously pointed, high-arched foot. As he circles in the forest, a small scissor step has become far wider and bolder, expressing ecstasy but also ferocity. (Has he learned to outwardly savor those moments when he approaches the sublime, as his fellow dancers often do?) And as always, he floats in perfect split grand jetés, defying gravity. One drawback is that he is so long-legged that the Met stage seems too small for him in these leaps.

I would not have predicted that Semionova would be such a profoundly moving Giselle; her rather tall height doesn't lend itself to the girlishness that in part makes the character's illness and death so terribly sad. But she moves with such tenderness and delicacy that she appeared to be moving through water at times. Hallberg is the right height for her, and together they were heartachingly gorgeous. He is tall for Cojocaru, with whom he danced on Saturday, but she gives a powerful portrayal of the broken ingenue. (Plus, how can one quibble with him as a substitute, despite missing Cornejo's only Giselle?) She is a natural fit for the role, seamlessly transitioning from a demure coquette to a tragic spirit. Again, it is a lovely gift that Cojocaru, one of the luminaries of the current generation, guests with ABT.

Alina Cojocaru as Giselle. Photo: Gene Schiavone

David Hallberg will perform in Swan Lake and The Dream in the final weeks of ABT's season at the Met, and in July, with the Bolshoi during the Lincoln Center Festival. When it rains it pours, but don't hesitate to seize the moment as he is a singular talent in a generation of fine dancers.

Murmurs and Rituals at Lincoln Center

Aurélia Thierrée... Just hangin' around. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Murmurs is a showcase of visual one-liners and sleights-of-hand, sewn together in a loose
narrative that follows a melancholy woman's reluctant move from her home to, seemingly, an institution. Aurélia Thierrée, the star, is from a supremely talented family that includes her mother, Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, who conceived and directed this show. (Aurélia's brother is James Thierrée who has created numerous highly popular nouveau cirque productions, seen in NYC at BAM, that have included marvelous designs by Victoria. And they are descendants of both Charlie Chaplin and Eugene O'Neill.) 

Of the burgeoning nouveau cirque genre, Murmurs sits on the quieter, more intimate end of the scale. Several of the skits involve Thierrée manipulating puppets with strings looped through her fingers; my close proximity demanded that I consciously suspend disbelief, which worked about half the time, but it's not as if she's trying for complete illusion. Such scenes included an encounter with a giant bubble wrap monster who nuzzled her nose, and a tipsy drowsy, then frisky, "man" at a table. In a later more successful example, Thierrée sported a zebra-striped feather headdress and tail that evoked a gazelle with delicate flickering ears. 

Aurélia Thierrée and Jaime Martinez. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Chaplin's numerous sets features several photographic murals of townhouses reminiscent of Venice. Strategic slits in the vinyl provided slippery exits and entrances. The most intriguing and original set was an ancient wall whose layers peeled off to reveal first a tropical locale complete with little waving palm trees and a removable boat, and then a Roman mosaic that sprouted an arm and hugged Thierrée. Murmurs can refer to this "wall" (mur, in French), or to the whispers that are pretty much the only verbal communication. Sentimental music, such as distant opera, mixes with ambient sound so that despite the dearth of dialogue, the quiet is never overt. 

Supporting cast members include the razor-sharp dancer Jaime Martinez, familiar from Parsons Dance Company, who slices through a couple of tango-esque duets with Thierrée, and the lanky Magnus Jakobsson, a rubber-limbed clown whose regard of the main character evolves from peeved mover to enchanted servant. During set changes, the men wear ghostly grey suits and masks which add to the chilling idea that Thierrée was in the process of being committed against her will, culminating in a scene with a bare hospital bed. In a couple of more daring bits that played with aerial suspension, she dangled from a laundry line, and appeared to dance on air. The genuinely surprising ending involved a cat who seemed to be the last inhabitant of a collapsing building. Ushers chased the cat through the aisles; he finally dashed backstage as the rest of the cast took bows. Murmurs was the closest thing to dance at this year's Lincoln Center Festival. 

Dendy's Ritual Cyclical. Yep, I had just been shooed from where they dance. Photo: Susan Yung 

Before Murmurs, I caught Mark Dendy's Ritual Cyclical, part of Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and performed all over Lincoln Center's north plaza. It's difficult to separate the experience of viewing the show from the actual performative elements of the work. That said, some impressions:

• Arrived a few minutes late; wedged myself into the crowds in the tree grove, facing the reflecting pool, where I saw... crowds of people facing the pool. A small percentage seemed to be performers, who eventually raised their hands (that's all I could see them do), waving them gently. Apparently performers had done stuff in the pool.
• Three dancers gamboled on the canted lawn above Lincoln (the restaurant), where, incongruously, al fresco diners ate.
• I was shooed off of the concrete bench lining the grove, so I could see even less. Went to the Met Opera house side of the park, and was promptly shooed off of that, too. Some of the dancers wore military fatigues, so their bossiness was in character. They assembled to raise a flag, Iwo Jima style.
• Others, in evening garb, arranged their hair and clothing just so, then langourously swept their arms and stretched into elegant poses. 
• In the Met's window bays, another group, in office wear, leaned and posed in tandem; one slowly tore strips of newspaper and let them flutter in the wind, which, combined with the vertical piers, recalled 9/11. 
• On a temp stage in front of the library, three of the soldiers changed into Elvises, though by now most of my view was of the head of the person in front of me. I saw a lot of viewers plugging their ears during Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner.
• The production by nature was meant to move the audience around, and presumably it was not really possible to see every piece of the action. But Dendy activated the whole sprawling north end of the plaza, luring a big crowd. And hey, it was dance.

Lincoln Center Diminishes Dance This Summer

New York is so dance rich that it becomes a bit of a perverse sport to complain about the plethora. But in a twist, Lincoln Center's indoor summer festivals are ditching dance this year.

But first, we're on the eve of New York City Ballet's spring season, and two weeks hence, ABT's, which take us halfway through July. That's an insane amount of the finest repertory in the history of feet, danced by the finest feet in the history of dirt. 

ABT ends in July, and Lincoln Center Festival begins. Right after that, in August, Mostly Mozart takes over Lincoln Center.

This year, however, looks like I've got many free summer nights after ABT since neither the LCF nor Mostly Mozart is presenting any dance. 

LCF used to heavily feature dance. In 2006 alone, there was a mini-festival of Israeli dance with Batsheva, Yasmeen Godder, and Emanuel Gat, plus San Francisco Ballet with three programs including Mark Morris' Sylvia, STREB, Saburo Teshigawara, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane. In 2010, the Mariinsky Ballet visited, and the festival hosted the clever Merce Fair.

Sure, LCF is further cultivating cross-genre performance, where the lines blur between music, theater, and everything else. One show, Murmurs, features the movement theater (or nouveau cirque) of Aurelie Thiérrée and Victoria Thiérrée Chaplin, but it is not dance. What happened?

Plus, Mark Morris has waved the baton in recent Mostly Mozart seasons, and usually brings one of his splendid full-length works, such as L'Allegro, or the sublime Mozart Dances, which premiered in that halcyon 2006 season. This year—nada. 

Lincoln Center Out of Doors just announced the season's lineup. Huzzah—it includes the companies of Mark Dendy, Kyle Abraham, and John Heginbotham.

So, dance mavens, more nights watching baseball this year. Now I've really gotta roots for the Mets. Maybe the timing is providential, because they need my support.

Tao Dance Theater—Primal and Essential

Tao Ye and Duan Ni. 2012 photo by Peggy Jarrell Kaplan, courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts

Tao Dance Theater happens to be based near Beijing, but as far as its relation to either Chinese dance—or European or American dance, for that matter—it occupies its own galaxy. Choreographer Tao Ye presented two dances at Alice Tully Hall in the 2012 Lincoln Center Festival, 4 and 2, describing the number of dancers. The company performed in last year's Fall for Dance and was one of the more intriguing New York debuts; this run lived up to ensuing expectations. 


Tao eschews standard forms of dance, instead carefully reading and exploring the body from the inside out. He strips movement to its fundamentals, shorn of excess, leaving primal, essential movement. Voluminous costumes by Li Min have more in common with martial arts uniforms than the usual costumes worn in dance, and yet despite the drapes and folds of fabric, don't obscure the tensile strength of the body. Tao employs a great deal of floor work, and the garments probably help to protect the joints and add a softness to the movement quality.


In 4, the performers wear chambray smocks, genie pants, and somewhat sinister masks. Duan Ni, Wang Hao, Xie Xin, and Lei Yan move as one, yet with individuality. Arrayed in a diamond shape, they never break from position even as they revolve in their own individual orbits. The torso ripples and convulses powerfully, almost like an octopus, guiding the legs in one direction, or led by the head tilting sideways. Hands are held in fists for the most part, never decorative, nor manifestations of perceived grace. And yet the movement is so much of the human body, emanating from inside out, that it is fundamentally beautiful, organic, pure. The rhythmic, organized phrases have a productive quality, as if the dancers were weaving invisible patterns. As the lights dim, they continue to weave, receding from sight.

Duan Ni and Tao Ye. Photo: Andrea Mohin 

At the start of 2, Tao and Duan, dressed in olive drab fitted tops and voluminous pants, lie like bear pelt rugs, feet toward us. They're still long enough to lull the audience into nervous chatter even as white noise fills the air. They begin to move in fits and starts, gradually pulling off the floor but rarely higher than sitting on their calves, legs folded beneath them. All body parts other than the obvious become supportive: particularly shoulders, rib cages, and heads. What might seem to be awkward positions for humans take on a beauty evocative of other animal species. (Try sitting on the insides of your thighs, knees fully bent, and arch back as far as you can. Or rather, don't try it.) They move across the stage mostly without walking, and when they do get on their feet, they're in full plié and waddle like ducks. 


While they move together in bursts, there's no beat to follow in the varied, abstract soundscape by Xiao He, who also created the chant-filled music for 4. And though clearly in tune with one another, they touch perhaps twice, and only by bumping shoulders, not emotively. The trajectory of 2 does seem to follow their evolution from inert slugs to more expressive, sentient beings. Gravity is their prime constraint, and it's a heavy one, but it certainly doesn't constrain Tao's creativity.


This exercise in endurance for the dancers (and for some of the audience who exited before the end) also defied the norm with several minutes of music playing in darkness during the presumed finale. The pair eventually appeared before us, eyes closed, feet apart, inscrutable. Their inward focus didn't waver until they opened their eyes slowly and someone from the audience urged a bouquet on them as cheers erupted, breaking the spell that had already cast its magic.

Pina's Orpheus and Eurydice—Don't Look Back

Paris Opera Ballet in Pina's Orpheus and Eurydice. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Pina Bausch's Orpheus and Eurydice is one of those rare fully-produced operas led by a choreographer with enough name power to have complete artistic control. It was performed by the Paris Opera Ballet at the Koch Theater as part of Lincoln Center Festival 2012. And while a handsome artistic totality, perhaps predictably, it showed specific, fairly narrow elements of Bausch's talent.


Backing up a little, even before her premature death in 2009, Bausch's reputation and legend had been building into its own mythology, and with good reason. The works that BAM (where I work) brought beginning in the early 80s, and through the mid-90s, formed the foundation: they were unsparing, tough, gritty, sadistic, yet humorous, sensual, and ultimately optimistic about our ability to thrive in the face of adversity, without being as didactic as that just sounded. 


These tough works (including such pieces as Palermo, Palermo; Arien; Gebirge; Nelken; and Two Cigarettes in the Dark) in the eyes of her many fans forged her reputation as a visionary artist willing to put her dancers through hell and, literally, (not so high) water, and their willingness to endure her psychological steeplechases. They also paved the way for her subsequent phase, which would last for the remainder of her career— numerous commissioned travelogues about specific cities or cultures that shed most of the darkness that had engulfed her previous output. 


In all of these pieces, which had only been presented in New York at BAM, dance played a significant, but not necessarily proprietary, role. Often more memorable were the shocking scenes in which women (and occasionally, men) appeared to be if not actually tortured, then symbolically so. Or the comical vignettes involving one of her many charismatic dancers slowly promenading while doing something ridiculous, yet behaving as if it were the coolest thing in the world, and watching our reaction. Or the never-ending flirtations between women, in satin slip dresses and heels, and men in suits, or shirtless. 


The dance sections came with regularity, of course, but her slippery, lyrical phrases seemed fraught with urgency, as if the dancers needed to get them out of their system before the next bizarre section began. They were the glue that always brought the emotional dynamic back to neutral ground.

Marie-Agnès Gillot and Stéphane Guillion in the title roles. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Bausch created Orpheus and Eurydice way back in 1975; performed by her company, it was one of her earliest creations, after Iphigenie et Tauride and Rite of Spring, also in POB's repertory. It indisputably bears the look and feel of her collaborative team, with sets/costumes/lighting by Rolf Borzik (whose aesthetic was carried throughout her creative body of work by Peter Pabst and Marian Cito). The illusion of architectural partitions is formed by fabric panels, augmented by plexiglass panes and various dead or "live" flora; very tall chairs create a man-made forest. 


The women, barefoot, wore elegant long-sleeved, floor-length gowns of black, white, and pale pink throughout the respective sections (mourning, violence, peace, and death). The three featured solo singers wore black gowns of a similar design; they moved in concert with their corresponding doppelgänger dancers. (The Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble und Chor performed with clarity and verve in the pit.) The male dancers wore suits, butcher aprons, or nude-hued trunks. The long-limbed Marie-Agnès Gillot portrayed Eurydice in a red gown, and an ardent Stéphane Buillion, Orpheus, the night I attended. As fluent as the POB dancers were, I missed the strong, individual personalities that Pina had cultivated over many years in Wuppertal.


Bausch often relied heavily on a jukebox music approach to set the mood for each section in her non-operatic work. With Gluck's score as the one prevailing given, that liberty was taken away, so Bausch needed to describe the mood with action and movement. She couldn't or wouldn't use mime, instead relying on dance. Yet dance was but one tool she worked with, and she never seemed completely interested in expanding her fairly limited choreographic vocabulary, at least not the way she voraciously probed the human psyche, or new cultures.

Marie-Agnès Gillot as Eurydice. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Thus Orpheus is filled with repeating sweeping arms, taut upper body oppositions, and various plaintive gestures of sorrow. Pretty much just one character (Love) ever seemed happy (alright, I know it's the story of Orpheus); the rest moved somberly or apologetically, similar to the way Bausch usually carried herself in the public eye. The group dances were emotionally powerful—a Greek chorus evoking a tribal feel–with touches of primitive folk dance. An experiment with lengths of string, reeled out across the stage to form a sort of horizontal web, seemed only to be a hazard. And the final death scene was notable for its utter stasis as Gillot lay cross-wise on top of her vocal counterpart for a long time (Yun Jung Choi; Maria Riccarda Wesseling sang Orpheus). In a moment of restlessness, I recalled how early this work was in her career, and where Bausch would go from there.

Lincoln (Center Festival) Log, 7/14/11

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Lincoln (Center Festival) Log: Royal Shakespeare Co. at Park Avenue Armory, Mariinsky Ballet at Met.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/lincoln-center-festival-log/1457/

On Vanishing. Photo by Michael Hart.

The end of an era began two years ago, when Merce Cunningham passed away. After an intense period of (ongoing) mourning by the dance world and the world at large, plans were unveiled by the company for the ominously titled Legacy Tour, which is in its final stages, after which the company will disband. The third-to-last New York phase took place last weekend as part of Lincoln Center Festival. (It will appear in BAM’s Next Wave Festival in December with three programs, and then leading up to New Year’s Eve at the Park Avenue Armory. Then, kaput.) But meanwhile, at the Guggenheim a few days prior to “Merce Fair,” MCDC alumnus Jonah Bokaer was quietly adding to his own oeuvre (and, in a sense, to Merce’s) with a polished, solid work, On Vanishing.