Running Elevated to Art at PS21

Ethan Law, Sabina Bočková,Viktor Černický, Dora Sulženko Hoštova. Photo: Steven Taylor

Running… For your life. On empty. Errands. Toward something. Away from your troubles. Out of time. On pure adrenaline. Out of energy. For office. On fumes. Down the clock.

But on a stage, on a 10-meter long treadmill, in addition to dancing, cycling, spinning a Cyr wheel, doing quotidian tasks, or reminiscing about your childhood? Yes, in Runners, by Cirk La Putyka from the Czech Republic, at PS 21’s intimate, open-air amphitheater in Chatham on July 22. The treadmill is similar to those instruments of torture that you find at any gym—it goes from slow to way-too-fast, but this one reverses too. (Do the ones in the gym? Hmm.) This one also serves as a metaphor for the passage of time, and with it, memory and identity. It’s also the source of hilarity, awe, and imparted terror regarding the six performers: Dora Sulženko Hoštova, Viktor Černický, Ethan Law, Sabina Bočková, Veronika Linhartová, and Jakub Rushka.

Veronika Linhartová and Jakub Ruschka, strolling minstrels. Photo: Steven Taylor

Four of them are dancers, and they are fascinating individuals about whom we learn biographical details through spoken anecdotes, many involving daredevil acts and the lure of speed. These periodic monologues, recited downstage at a mic, offer respites from the often breakneck action on the treadmill, angled diagonally on stage for most of the hour. Bočková tells of being unable to sit still, and as a child, eagerly plunging into a deep pool time after time. Černický recalls riding his bicycle at top speed down a mountain, and crash landing in a soft spot of grass. Law was tossed by a robotic arm high in the air before face planting on the hard floor and hence being immobilized for nine months. Hoštova reminisces about her mother's closet, performing an elegant dance over a rolling bed of what appeared to be gravel.

Simply the act of standing up without falling while the treadmill accelerates seems impossible. They usually stand sideways, as if surfing, but then add in dance moves, lunges, rolls, arabesques, and more. The mounts and dismounts are a whole separate art—sometimes, they simply roll off, but in one section, a crash mat catches them as they leap and spring high in the air. Černický places inflatable balls of different sizes on the treadmill, arranging them precisely so they spin on their own. Then he rides a bicycle on the treadmill, eventually going hands-free; this looks extremely perilous, even for a pro. Law, who resembles Bono, is a Cyr wheel expert, and after a routine performed on the stage floor, gets on the treadmill for a spin on the Cyr wheel and some flashy moves before setting the wheel spinning on its own. It sounds so simple, but one can only imagine the practice behind this act.

Dora Sulženko Hoštova and Viktor Černický race to the finale! Photo: Steven Taylor

The two musicians, Linhartová and Ruschka, provide the atmospheric and varied music and sound, comprising folk tunes, rhythmic interludes, and rock songs. For the final act, the performers pivot the treadmill perpendicular to us; the musicians leave their upstage box and stroll on it facing downstage while playing the violin and guitar and singing. The four dancers, now in running gear (Bočková wore just socks, no running shoes), form a pack and begin to race one another for both speed and duration. They shout out their speeds, reaching a 10 mph sprint, which seems insane, especially with spotlights in their eyes and an audience of hundreds watching. Ultimately, the long-legged Černický is the sole remaining runner; the lights dim but for rays emanating from behind him. I sat in awe of what the human body can do, and what the brain accepts as sane. Clearly, these performers have extreme capability in both arenas.

Runners is directed by Rostislav Novák, Vít Neznal; choreography by Dora Sulženko Hoštová; dramaturgy by Petr Erbes, Viktor Černický; set design by Pavla Kamanová; costumes by NoN Grata and Mikuláš Brukne; music by Jan Čtvrtník, Veronika Linhartová; lighting design by Jiří (Zewll) Maleňák; sound design by Jan Středa.

A Perfect Midsummer Evening at SPAC

Anthony Huxley in Scherzo Fantastique. Photo: Paul Kolnik

At a perilous geoclimatic moment in the Anthropocene, the weather in Saratoga Springs on the evening of July 19 was positively a gift. Perhaps not an azure sky, but clear enough of the Canadian forest fire smog that’s been plaguing the Northeast. A temperature in the upper 70s, nearly 50 degrees less than the extremes of the southwest, and 20 less than the Florida ocean’s bathtub level heat. No floods like in nearby Vermont. Perfect for New York City Ballet’s program of 21st-century choreography and the enthusiastic house at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC).

Scherzo Fantastique (2016) by Justin Peck, commissioned on occasion of the company’s 50th anniversary at SPAC, bears motifs of his now familiar style—the cast clustering centerstage conspiratorially before bursting apart and expressing individuality, playful duets and solos (notably for the pellucid Anthony Huxley) done with exuberance and camaraderie to the Stravinsky score. The bold designs spell high spirits: a painted backdrop by Jules de Balincourt of a foliage allée in hot saturated hues (evoking some of Munch’s fervid works), and the equally zazzy costumes of horizontal color bands with fringe, or studded with flowers, by Reid + Harriet. Seven years on, and many Peck ballets later, this dance fits in alongside a number of similarly solid ballets distinguished by unique production elements.

Chun Wai Chan (front) with cast in Play Time. Photo: Erin Baiano

Gianna Reisen’s Play Time premiered at 2022’s fashion gala, and aptly, the lavish costumes by Alejandro Gómez Palomo take center stage alongside the music, by Solange. The dancers wore sparkly, tailored pieces of individual styles and hues—boxy suit jackets, form-fitting bodysuits, funky wide-hipped numbers, flouncy skirts. Unfortunately, they outshone the choreography, paced by a stop and start rhythm. New principal Chun Wai Chan stood out with his charisma and bold attack; he was also the only dancer to receive the once-standard applause for principals' entrances.

It was paired with Christopher Wheeldon’s Liturgy (2003), one of his most memorable duets set originally on Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto, and here danced by Sara Adams and Jovani Furlan. (Whelan seemed to inspire Wheeldon to make his greatest works; his duet After the Rain, amongs his most sublime dances, featured the same pair in its original cast.) Liturgy is packed with sculptural shapes, daring yet elegant experiments between two bodies, and a consistently elegiac atmosphere.

Sebastian Villarini-Velez and Quinn Starner in Love Letter (on shuffle). Photo: Erin Baiano

Kyle Abraham has created some of the most exciting dances lately on NYCB, including Love Letter (on shuffle) (2022), performed at SPAC. While obviously a skilled artist and choreographer, he didn’t emerge from a strict ballet background, as many have. It’s his unexpected mix of styles that create a kind of personal iconography, or kinesiography, that draws you in. The sudden buckle of the knee that flips a walk from formal to louche. A casual fist bump between two men, a reminder of the affection and teamwork involved. An awkward collapse of the spine to humanize and break the sheer beauty of ballet’s vocabulary. Many of the phrases feel like personal stories that Abraham is sharing through his dancers, and we are lucky to receive them.

He also riffs on ballet’s history, such as in the trio that clearly echoes the famous Pas de Quatre from Swan Lake. The dance, with striking costumes by Giles Deacon set to songs by James Blake, also premiered as part of the 2022 Fall Fashion Gala. These events provide an opportunity to commission less-known, younger choreographers (like Reisen), giving them a boost of exposure. Results are mixed; perhaps it’s natural for the artistry and outlandishness of fashiony costumes to demand all the attention. But with Abraham, the dance, driven by the well-chosen music, comes first and speaks most clearly, particularly on an evening with lovely weather that, sadly, felt nostalgic.

Vertiginous Thrills at the Pillow

Young Gyu Choi and Riho Sakomoto
 in Variations for Two Couples.
Photo by Christopher Duggan

Dutch National Ballet brought a widely varied slate of repertory to Jacob’s Pillow this month, proving that its wonderful dancers can handle the most devilish ballet technique, from classical to modern. Resident choreographer Hans van Manen was represented by Variations for Two Couples, Five Tangos, and the previously unannounced Solo, which turned out to be perhaps the most appealing work on the bill. Additionally, Wubkje Kuindersma’s Two and Only, William Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, and Victor Gsovsky’s Grand Pas Classique were performed.

Van Manen’s imprint can be found in ballet repertories around the world, and he has spent large blocks of time at Nederlands Dans Theater and DNB. His choreography is notable for its precision, dramatic breadth, playfulness and humor, all of which emerged in his Pillow rep. Solo, actually performed by three men in purple chemises, lets the dancers ham it up, goading the audience with spread arms and ta-das. They leap high, move faster than you might think possible, and take turns vying for best-liked. How to choose?

Qiam Liu and men in Five Tangos. Photo: Christopher Duggan

Variations (2012) presents the more analytic, sculptural side of van Manen. In lustrous, dark-hued unitards, pairs show some of the choreographer’s signature moves—precise partnering, pencil turns, scissoring legs, heads bobbling. One of the four songs is by Astor Piazzolla, whose music provides the foundation for Five Tangos. (This music is catnip for modern/ballet choreographers; see Paul Taylor’s Piazzolla Caldera.) The womens’ costumes provide visual snap, which carries through the dance, which evokes the attitude of tango more than a literal rendition: attack bordering on martial arts, absolute confidence and boldness, and dramatic flair. Qiam Liu and Young Gyu Choi led the cast with terrific expressiveness and athleticism.

Davi Ramos, Sho Yamada, and Salome Leverashvli in The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude.
Photo by Christopher Duggan.

Forsythe created Vertiginous (1996) back when he was radicalizing ballet, and largely before focusing on his evening-length conceptual works that are as much art installation/theater as dance. The womens’ chartreuse, Saturn-ring tutus still look futuristic while raising questions about the origin and necessity for the tutu, period. But they tie the dance to the classical tradition, as does Schubert's music, canned and nostalgic feeling. Hewing to the title, the steps are fast, fierce, and dangerous looking, performed with speed and accuracy. Torqued torsos and high jumps into rétiré number among Forsythe’s balletic experiments. Two and Only (2018), a shirtless male duet, felt a bit like an add-on, marked by a pose-and-move rhythm to somewhat sappy folk songs by Michael Benjamin.

Sadly, the cast lacked an injured Olga Smirnova, a recent company addition who left the Bolshoi after Russia attacked Ukraine. But the company dancing at the Pillow met the loftiest standards of the art, and their ease and facility in a breadth of styles impressed. Let's hope they return state-side soon.

The Look of Love's Warm Embrace

The Look of Love. Photo: Christopher Duggan

There are many reasons to embrace The Look of Love by Mark Morris, a suite to songs by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David, which I saw at Jacob’s Pillow on June 29. Premiering in the wake of the pandemic in 2022, it’s anchored by human interaction on a mostly generous and affectionate level, in sync with Bacharach’s molten, gauzy harmonics. It employs just 10 of the Mark Morris Dance Group; the set is simply five colored chairs with cushions which the dancers move about. Isaac Mizrahi designed the production and the pop-hued tunics and separates. 

Ethan Iverson imaginatively arranged 14 of Bacharach’s songs, nearly all of which were huge hits. (He wrote one song, “The Blob,” to lyrics by Mack David, Hal’s brother; it seemed to be inserted as a kind of hilarious anchor to keep the bubbly work grounded.) The piece begins with a piano rendition of “Alfie,” intimate and searching, in keeping with the existential lyrics. To “What the World Needs Now,” the dancers pair off, a couple to a chair, the set now arrayed like a flower. Morris leans on shapes with right-angle geometry and simple steps like triplets, with arms flung wide. There’s a crispness to the whole work, from the rhythmic clarity underscored by the choreography, to the brilliant hot colors. 

The Look of Love. Photo: Christopher Duggan

Of course Morris injects humor now and then in nods to the lyrics. In “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” the dancers mime catching pneumonia, or shoving their partner. Iverson inserted a musical interlude, which briefly releases the movement from the narrative. In “Raindrops,” the dancers playfully hop, test for, and flick the rain, and in “Don’t Make Me Over,” the performers did a weird version of the Floss. “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” featured some of the most athletic and large-scale movement, with barrel leaps and right-angled arms pointing the way. Dallas McMurray and Billy Smith captured the eye with their clean, unmannered technique that nonetheless felt suffused with meaning. From time to time a dancer lifted another, but a repeating, clever kinetic exclamation took the form of cartwheeling onto another seated dancer’s knees, or the like. Less hoisting of meat and bones is good for all!

“Walk on By” included quick paces and pivots, and faces dropped into spread palms to convey melancholy and introspection. Grapevines in single and double time done by pairs holding hands, one facing upstage at times, couched “Always Something There to Remind Me,” while slow hand pushes, as if through mud, in lunges marked the drowsy pace of “Look of Love” (while McMurray lip synced upstage) and tiny arm flaps were the recurring motif in “Say a Little Prayer.” Morris often creates oddball moves that become signatures for dances or sections, but here, they’re less affected and are rather simple gestures, and are thus highly relatable. 

Singer Marcy Harriel has past singers' (mainly Dionne Warwick) big shoes to fill and handles the task wonderfully, accompanied by a small band led by MMDG Music Director Colin Fowler. The close proximity of the dancers to the audience in the Pillow’s Ted Shawn Theatre provided a greater intimacy and connection than the company often has in opera houses; it will soon perform repertory at the Joyce Theater (impossibly, for the first time) which will be even cozier. The songs’ nostalgia, crackerjack performers, and vivid production made me want to see it again. Here's wishin' and hopin'.

Competing with the Sun in Chatham

Mercuric Tidings. Photo: Steven Taylor

Being a choreographer is difficult. Carrying a choreographer's legacy is no easy task either, especially given that the company must remain relevant. In recent years, Paul Taylor Dance Company had been performing brief spring/summer runs in addition to its usual longer fall seasons at the Koch. The short series, at different outposts, had smartly focused on sub-genres—more experimental early Taylor work at the Joyce, or dances done to early or classical music at the Manhattan School of Music with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Last year, PTDC was one of several major New York companies comprising a mini-festival at New York City Center. This year, it seems that the company has foregone a short New York run, instead touring. It returned to Chatham’s elegant, plein air amphitheater, PS 21, in June with a lively, if not particularly challenging program that included Mercuric Tidings, A Field of Grass, and Piazzolla Caldera.

During Taylor’s lifetime, an evening’s dances often fell into a three course menu-style format of opener with some oomph, a more thoughtful or dark work, and then a closer meant to dazzle audiences. In its weeks-long New York season, 20 or so dances might be featured, with each program usually different. While that is some tough logistical feat to plan, it meant that repertory could be mixed and matched and repeat viewers could see the spectrum of Taylor’s amazing output.

In contrast, a three-performance run at smaller venue such as PS 21 features one bill. So it might be even tougher to select which three dances to feature in order to best represent the company. The dances Artistic Director Michael Novak chose for Chatham are easy to digest, albeit each representing a unique Taylor subgenre.

Mercuric Tidings (1982) ranks among one of Taylor’s most demanding abstract dances, with lots of rapid-fire stage crossings and patterns, and luminous performances by Madelyn Ho and John Harnage. At the moment, the current company impresses most on a technical level, with formidable athletic prowess. That said, the demands of this dance reveal that it could use more rehearsal, with a few ragged ensemble sections and rough lifts. It opened the program, which means that it coincided—and fought—with a dazzling solstice sunset visible to most of the audience. The cyc lighting begins in a bright pink hue, and the intensity was so high—we’re talking a Robert Wilson level event—that it hurt my eyes. Maybe it was to counter the sun’s effects? Or maybe new technology has vaulted past the comfort level of the human eye.

Eran Bugge and Alex Clayton in A Field of Grass. Photo: Steven Taylor

A Field of Grass (1993), to a suite of songs by Harry Nilsson, is a humorous romp in which the performers are, in theory, stoned or tripping. Alex Clayton, toking, leads off with a rubbery solo, rolling in a folded leg position, and bursting aloft, at which he is so skilled. Christina Lynch Markham, one of the company’s current standout character dancers, flings her hip-length hair madly as she leaps with abandon. Mirrored sunglasses hide presumably dilated pupils. The style—unfettered and propulsive—is among Taylor’s more pedestrian and casual.

Taylor pushed his range choreographically with Piazzolla Caldera (1997), plucking tango quotes and mixing them in with social dancing. While this dance has always benefited from a crisp approach, especially by the men in the first movement, the current cast seems extra martial, with Lee Duveneck snapping his legs like whips. Jessica Ferretti puts her long limbs to use in the lonely woman solo, less angry than sad about being shunned than past interpreters. An inventive and acrobatic duet exemplifies a subset by Taylor in which the men seem to alternately tussle and caress one another. The lighting in Piazzolla, no longer battling the now set sun, felt murky rather than chiaroscuro.

The current company, relatively young on the whole, comprises skilled technicians who can handle the trickiest steps and the breadth of styles by Taylor. But at moments, it feels as if the dancers are executing steps harshly, with the main goal of hitting marks and keeping on top of things. I imagine that in time, personalities will emerge through the many character roles Taylor crafted emphasizing humor and wit, transcending the not inconsiderable technical demands.

I miss the darker theatrical repertory that balances out the lively, more athletic work which seems to prevail these days—Big Bertha, Speaking in Tongues, and The Word come to mind. Perhaps these will be rotated in soon, giving audiences a fuller picture of the choreographer’s creative imagination. And will the American Modern Dance project (commissioning outside American choreographers) continue now that Lauren Lovette is resident choreographer, or has the company pivoted away from that? Of course the pandemic and its insidious effect on the economy, and particularly the cultural sector, are weighty factors. The coming years will test even the oldest establishments. 

New York Notebook, June 2023

Gallim in state, presaging the Martianscape of June 7. Photo: Steven Pisano

I took in some shows just before the atmospheric invasion from the Canadian wildfires that transformed the city into a Martian hellscape, if briefly. While it was pretty terrible feeling, it wasn't yet nuclear winter nor a permanent situation. But it did garner attention from all the media outlets based in the city, who amplified future warnings about climate change... perhaps the one upside.

Ballet Hispánico and Gallim are staples of the New York dance scene, and both showed how they have carved out strong reputations in the most densely populated dance hub in the world.

Ballet Hispánico June 3, 2023 City Center

The program exemplified the company’s core values: telling the stories of varied Hispanic cultures, and displaying their skilled technique.

New Sleep Duet by William Forsythe tilted toward abstract and cool. Fatima Andere, paired with Antonio Cangiano, allowed a smile in contrast to the sangfroid usually assumed in Forsythe’s ballet works. They performed the angular style with a lush plasticity.

Papagayos by Omar Román de Jesus is a surreal parable on power and its privileges and abuses. Amanda Del Valle conveyed a manic energy as a parrot in a shiny fringed jumpsuit who sought her hat—the token of power in a deadly game of musical chairs. Despite her show biz disposition, it carried shades of a nihilistic Ionesco story.

Ballet Hispánico in Sor Juana. Photo: Erin Baiano

In Sor Juana, Michelle Manzanales pays tribute to a complex historical figure—poet, feminist, nun, scholar, with the lithe, elegant Gabrielle Sprauve in the lead. Moving solos and duets are sandwiched between sections of movement for the ensemble, who stay in the same formation for too long. The striking costumes (by Sam Ratelle) change from formal colonial dresses to a nun’s habit to minimal bodysuits and trunks.

Pedro Ruiz celebrates Cuban music, social dance, and cigars in Club Havana. There’s plenty of partnering with lifts of all kinds, and somewhat forced, dated air of jollity and machismo/coyness, but it’s a solid, audience-pleasing closer.

Gallim in SAMA. Photo: Steven Pisano

Gallim, Joyce, June 4, 2023

This packed program encompassed Gallim’s talent and range, led by choreographer Andrea Miller.

The trio state begins with the smallest movements, mesmerizing tiny steps and direction shifts, danced by Emma Thesing, Vivian Pakkanen, and India Hobbs. These train your focus and show that even the most minute, highly controlled movement can be expressive. Middle sections allow for big, traveling steps and leaps. Jose Solís designed the smart costumes: slate tunics, blousy on top with fitted briefs and iridescent knee patches.

Sydney Chow and Gary Reagan performed a slapstick tour de force and affably wrassle like kids for dominance of a sofa in Castles, an excerpt of a full-length work, Fold Here.

No Ordinary Love, another remarkable chamber piece, was danced by Chalvar Monteiro and Issa Perez. They delivered the fluid, powerful, and impassioned choreography with great skill, making me wonder how humans could possibly be so beautiful and poetic.

SAMA—by Miller in collaboration with Rambert II and Gallim—is an explosive closer that builds to a fever pitch. It includes acrobatic dancers on stilts doing kicks, plus a cavalcade of unfettered leaps and twists, and dynamite ensemble sections in formations, plus smaller pullouts. A crowd-rousing finish to a dense program.

Reading Fiction while Being Asian

In the entertaining novel The Chinese Groove, Kathryn Ma glides between memories of the main character Shelley’s childhood in Gejiu, China, and his new, hard-won life as a college student in San Francisco. The titular groove is the invisible stuff binding his native country’s people, a kind of glue of guilt, culture, respect, and debt.

Shelley narrates with the loose, contemporary jargon of a quick learn, a hustler, and a survivor. And Ma puts in writing something that has gnawed at me for years while reading fiction:

        Ted handed a menu to Kate. “You choose for us.”

Kate protested, they should choose together, but the others insisted that Kate take charge. She spoke to the waiter, and I was impressed because her Cantonese wasn’t half bad. She told me that she’d learned to speak it from her grandparents who’d emigrated from Toisan. For me, it was a side dish language—nice to sample but not the main meat. Kate was Chinese. I forgot to earlier mention. She was ABC, born in Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese American parents who’d grown up in Chinatown. I’m sorry if I confused you. Take all the time you need to make the necessary adjustment. Believe me when I say that I didn’t neglect to tell you out of teasing or spite. When someone is telling me a story, I naturally assume that the people in it are the same race as I am, for isn’t it human nature to imagine the story and picture like kind? Please forgive my clumsiness, also my starting and stopping. I’m not like Father, who used to tell his stories as smoothly as oil spreads in a pan, though Father wasn’t burdened with making these fine distinctions because everyone he described was a countryman start to finish. It’s awkward to have to stop and pinpoint: this person is such-and-such, that person is fill-in-the-blank, but that’s the world we live in. You can’t avoid labels. By the way, Orit was white and, like Aviva, Jewish. You might’ve guessed from her name. Orit Hazan, Kate Choy, Leo Choy Hazan. Jews, I noted, sometimes held themselves apart. They knew what it was like to be treated as different. Orit grew up in Israel, which was another thing altogether. Have I left anyone out? Ted was Christian, I think. He didn’t go to church, but his mother had. Leo was mixed-race; Orit was his mother and younger than Kate. His father was Chinese—an unknown Chinese stranger. Imagine the auntie discussion that fact would’ve provoked! In Orit’s work, Talmudic.

       —The Chinese Groove, by Kathryn Ma, Counterpoint Press

This idea has come to mind repeatedly over time, in various mentions of a minor character’s Asianness, for no obvious reason than to “flavor” a scene with a note of the exotic, or foreign, or hip/bohemian, or impenetrability. This, while few other (except Black) characters’ ethnicity are mentioned, presuming whiteness on the part of the reader.

And I get it. Asians make up only a small percentage of Americans, and we’re not long past a time when there were laws against Asians entering the country. So I realize it’s not overt racism, but a kind of structural racism that still casts Asians as Others, even if we were born and raised in the US. If you have grown up Asian in a white majority community, you are no doubt familiar with the question, “But where are you really from?,” many times over—which got a British royal into muy hot water recently, eliciting her resignation from official duties. I thought, really? I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been asked that in my life after at first answering Connecticut. You learn to roll with it after being embarassed for both yourself and the asker. But it’s not meant to be racist, it's just curiosity and ignorance.

With so much awareness now on identity and DEI, I think it’s getting better. Just that Ma included this passage means a ton, particularly in the meandering way she takes a beat, breaks the fourth wall, so to speak, and muses aloud what she and many Asians have thought while reading fiction. She also takes it to a hilariously thorough level, underscoring how ludicrous a conceit it is. 

A big round of applause for Ma, and also for The Chinese Groove on the whole. It muses on how divergent cultures and antagonistic family members can find common ground in this zany country.