Matthew Rich leads the final Cedar Lake revolution at BAM in MY GENERATION (photo by Juliet Cervantes)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
June 3-6, $20-$55
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
cedarlakedance.com

It was hard not to be stirred when, during Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s final week ever, in the world premiere of My Generation, longtime company member Matthew Rich grooved to the front of BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House stage and lip synced to Atom™’s loud, industrial remix of the Who’s 1965 revolutionary classic, defiantly mouthing, “People try to put us d-down / Just because we g-g-get around / Things they do look awful c-c-cold / I hope I die before I get old,” followed by a false ending, as the curtain came down and then rose up again and the piece continued. This past March, it was announced that the Chelsea-based company, which began in 2003 financed solely by Walmart heiress Nancy Laurie — earning it both envy and jealousy from other dance organizations that have to struggle for money — would be shutting its doors because Laurie was removing her funding. Cedar Lake is at BAM June 3–6 for its farewell performances, and on Friday night they dazzled the loyal, dedicated crowd, which hooted and hollered regularly during My Generation, a dynamic, energetic work, choreographed by Richard Siegal, that shows off the dancers’ sheer athleticism (with nods to Alvin Ailey, Karole Armitage, Ronald K. Brown, and others). Bernhard Willhelm’s colorful costumes might be silly and frilly, but that didn’t detract from some jaw-dropping movement, especially by Ebony Williams, who towered over everyone while en pointe, then lifted her muscular legs impossibly toward the sky, and Rich, who gyrated with exhilarating abandon.

Crystal Pite’s TEN DUETS ON A THEME OF RESCUE is centerpiece of Cedar Lake farewell at BAM (photo by Juliet Cervantes)

Things calmed down considerably with the evening’s middle section, one of the company’s signature works, Crystal Pite’s lovely, meditative Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, a series of pas de deux performed within a semicircle of fifteen Klieg lights on movable poles and three spots above. Joaquim de Santana, Vânia Doutel Vaz, Joseph Kudra, Navarra Novy-Williams, and Rich take turns on the otherwise black and smoky stage, coming together to instrumental music from Cliff Martinez’s soundtrack for Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Solaris. If anything, Ten Duets is too short at less than twenty minutes, which perhaps only adds to its poignant intimacy — as does its title, which takes on new meaning since the company itself could not be rescued. The evening concluded with the New York premiere of Johan Inger’s Rain Dogs, a Pina Bausch–inspired piece of dance theater in which Bond, Concepcion, Santana, Doutel Vaz, Novy-Williams, Guillaume Quéau, Rich, Ida Saki, and Jin Young Won, wearing subtle, everyday clothing (that changes fabulously midway through), glide, slide, writhe, and line up to such Tom Waits songs as “Make It Rain,” “Dirt in the Ground,” “Hoist That Rag,” and “The Piano Has Been Drinking.” The work, which contains playful humor, whispering to the audience, and clever, inventive set pieces built around old radios, tape recorders, and speakers, was particularly bittersweet given that the Howard Gilman Opera House has been the New York home of Tanztheater Wuppertal for more than thirty years, and now not only is Bausch herself gone, having passed away in 2009, but this week we have to say goodbye to the immensely talented Cedar Lake, who on Saturday night will take its final bow and just f-f-fade away after presenting Jiří Kylián’s Indigo Rose, Ten Duets, and Jo Strømgren’s Necessity, Again.