Nederlands Dance Theater II at Joyce Theater
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/nederlands-dans-theater-ii/696/
Many of the top dance companies have second troupes that serve as farm teams. They develop young talent, allowing time for technique to deepen and providing invaluable stage experience. This seems to be the New York season for the “twos,” what with runs by ABT II, Ailey II, and NDT II taking place within weeks of one another. I caught the latter’s run at theJoyce, which ended Sunday.
Other notable examples include Taylor 2, begun in 1993 by Paul Taylor, and Merce Cunningham’s Repertory Understudy Group, composed of apprentices. These two differ in that both the first and second companies perform only their founder’s choreography. Taylor 2, with six dancers, often performs “miniature,” scaled-down versions of Taylor’s dances originally made for the larger company.
Cunningham will experiment with the RUGs, as they’re known, transferring computer-assisted choreography from the software Lifeforms to real dancers, as the New York Times recently described.
