Gregory Dolbashian’s DASH Ensemble will present LIKE THE EAGLE at Summer Sampler Matinee at the Joyce
The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
June 4-5, $10-$39, 2:00
Festival runs through June 12
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org
The Gotham Dance Festival continues at the Joyce this weekend with two matinee performances featuring a trio of exciting young choreographers. Brooklyn-based dancer and choreographer Kyle Abraham, who has danced with David Dorfman, Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane, and the Kevin Wynn Collection, among others, will lead his hip-hop-influenced Abraham.In.Motion company in the new work The Quiet Dance. Also based in Brooklyn, the hugely talented Faye Driscoll, who has staged such unique and fascinating productions as 837 Venice Blvd. and There is so much mad in me and was included in the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” exhibit of emerging talent under the age of thirty-three, will present not…not, part I, which looks at beauty, power, and desire, with her Faye Driscoll Dance Group. New York City native Gregory Dolbashian, who debuted at the tender age of eight with the Glimmerglass Opera, was the resident choreographer for the Chicago Ballet and CorbinDances before forming the DASH Ensemble, which will perform Like the Eagle. Next week’s Summer Sampler Matinee will feature works by Julian Barnett, Ashleigh Leite, and Sydney Skybetter.
Update: The first of four Gotham Dance Festival Summer Sampler Matinees was an at times subdued but overall inspired affair, consisting of three short works that all included extended moments of silence. Abraham.In.Motion’s The Quiet Dance was indeed quiet, starting off with Abraham dancing to no music, then joined by the quartet of Chalvar Monteiro, Elyse Morris, Rachelle Rafailedes, and Hsiao-Jou Tang, who remained relatively fixed in position on the left side of the stage as they danced in place to jazz legend Bill Evans’s gorgeous piano solo “Some Other Time.” For most of the piece, the performers do not make contact with one another until they break off into duets, having changed into dungarees and button-down shirts. Faye Driscoll takes a very different approach in not…not (part 1): If you pretend you are drowning / I will pretend I am saving you (a teaser of which can be seen above, from her March residency at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University), in which she, in a Moe-ish moptop, and Jesse Zaritt, in a Larry Fine-like curly fro, play a pair of rather not-very-good dancers performing a rather poorly choreographed work, making silly muscular gestures, unable to properly complete twists, stretches, and turns, displaying clearly overstated, ridiculously fake emotions, and acting out some extremely awkward and absurd sexual situations. Set to no music at all (although the Playbill credits Brandon Wolcott and Emil Abramyan, furthering the production’s purposeful ineptness by making mistakes in the printed program and, later, with the closing curtain), it’s a very funny work that concludes with Driscoll’s tour-de-force flurry through a seemingly endless bag of props. Driscoll and Zaritt were a tough act to follow, having laid the groundwork for an audience ready for further silly choreography that would make Leonard Pinth-Garnell proud, but Gregory Dolbashian’s DASH Ensemble quickly dashed those concerns, as Like the Eagle soared with a series of virtuosic moves by Antonio Brown, joined by Mor Gur-Arie, Alexandra Johnson, Rebecca Niziol, and Christopher Ralph. Transitioning from silent passages to quotes about inspiration from a WNYC RadioLab broadcast to music by Marsen Jules, Hauschka, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Hoarse, Like the Eagle featured the most aggressive choreography of the afternoon. The well-curated three-piece program will be performed again on Sunday afternoon, offering another chance to see wonderful work by three extremely talented and inventive young choreographers.