this week in dance

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO: DECADANCE

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performs Ohad Naharin’s Anaphase as part of Decadance/Chicago at the Joyce (© Todd Rosenberg Photography)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
March 6-17, $10-$80
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.hubbardstreetdance.com

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Decadance/Chicago is an exhilarating evening of invigorating motion and sound, energetically performed by the talented Illinois troupe, returning to the Joyce for the first time in four years. The piece consists of excerpts from nine works by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin and Batsheva Dance Company, a kind of evolving greatest-hits package. The evening opens with a tall young man in somewhat Hasidic garb, instructing us to turn off our cellphones in a very serious tone of voice. When the second act begins, he asks the audience a series of questions that get rather personal. Both introductions immediately work to create an intimate, quirky, magical space for the performers and audience to inhabit. The sixteen-person company, each one worthy of singling out — Craig D. Black Jr., Jacqueline Burnett, Rena Butler, Alicia Delgadillo, Kellie Epperheimer, Michael Gross, Elliot Hammans, Alysia Johnson, Myles Lavallee, Adrienne Lipson, Florian Lochner, Ana Lopez, Andrew Murdock, David Schultz, Kevin J. Shannon, and Connie Shiau — exhibits Naharin’s Gaga movement language, “which emphasizes the exploration of sensation and availability for movement,” resulting in a unique and identifiable vocabulary that offers dancers chances to improvise amid the complex structures.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago kicks off Decadance/Chicago at the Joyce with Max (© Todd Rosenberg Photography)

Staged by Ian Robinson and Rachael Osborne so that several of the excerpts flow smoothly into the next, Decadance/Chicago highlights the upper body at the start, particularly the arms and hands, as dancers come together and break off into solos. They rarely slow down as they move to Dick Dale’s “Hava Nagila,” Goldfrapp’s “Train,” Arvo Pärt’s “Fur Alina,” Marusha’s “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” Ali Hassan Kuban’s “Mabrouk Wo Arisna,” Dean Martin’s “Sway,” the Beach Boys’ “You’re Welcome,” and a woman reciting Charles Bukowski’s 1972 poem “making it,” the last with poetic cumulative choreography for five women. The company lines up at the front of the stage as the dancers suddenly burst into brief solos; they break into three groups and play a game of horse as each dancer either copies the previous one or dares the proceeding one to match them; the cast ventures into the audience and grabs partners to dance with onstage; and then they bring out the showstopping Anaphase, in which fifteen performers are arranged in a semicircle of chairs and remove their Hasidic garb (black pants, white shirt, black jacket, and black hat) to Naharin and Tractor’s Revenge’s adaptation of the traditional Passover song “Ehad Mi Yodea,” a dazzling display that leaves the audience breathless.

The excerpts range from 1993’s Anaphase — which I have now seen three times, the first by Batsheva, then by Alvin Ailey, in which I was one of the audience members brought onstage, and now by Hubbard Street, with my wife getting chosen to dance, and it has been a joy on each occasion — to 2011’s Sadeh21 and also include Zachacha, Naharin’s Virus, Three, Telophaza, George & Zalman, Max, and Seder. Experiencing Naharin’s choreography performed by this young, high-energy, spectacularly gifted company makes for an electrifying evening that’s not to be missed. Decadance/Chicago continues through March 10, to be followed March 12-17 by HSDC’s versions of a trio of works by Canadian choreographer and Kidd Pivot founder Crystal Pite, A Picture of You Falling, The Other You, and Grace Engine, all with music by Owen Belton. Batsheva fans can catch Naharin’s Venezuela March 27-30 at BAM.

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO: OHAD NAHARIN / CRYSTAL PITE

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will perform works by Ohad Naharin and Crystal Pite during two-week season at the Joyce (© Todd Rosenberg Photography)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
March 6-17, $10-$80
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.hubbardstreetdance.com

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago returns to the Joyce for the first time in four years with an exciting two-week season of two fab programs. From March 6 to 10, the company, which celebrated its fortieth anniversary last year, will put its own spin on Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva favorite, Decadance, an evolving greatest-hits-like presentation featuring excerpts from multiple works. Decadance/Chicago consists of nearly two hours of sections from such Naharin pieces as Minus 16, Virus, Three, George and Zalman, Max, Anaphase, and Seder. There will be a Curtain Chat at the March 7 performance. From March 12 to 17, HSDC brings a trio of works by Canadian choreographer and Kidd Pivot founder Crystal Pite, A Picture of You Falling, The Other You, and Grace Engine, all with music by Owen Belton. HSDC is led by artistic director Glenn Edgerton; the members of the company are Craig D. Black Jr., Jacqueline Burnett, Rena Butler, Alicia Delgadillo, Kellie Epperheimer, Michael Gross, Elliot Hammans, Alysia Johnson, Myles Lavallee, Adrienne Lipson, Florian Lochner, Ana Lopez, Andrew Murdock, David Schultz, Kevin J. Shannon, and Connie Shiau. Tickets are going fast, so you best not wait if you want to catch this hot troupe in action.

VERTIGO DANCE COMPANY: ONE. ONE & ONE

Vertigo presents US premiere of One. One & One at Baryshnikov Arts Center March 5-6

Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
March 5-6, $25, 7:30
646-731-3200
bacnyc.org
vertigo.org.il/en

In 2017, Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with One. One & One, a soulful, energetic production imbued with spirituality and immersed in a connection to the natural world. The company, based in the Vertigo Eco-Art Village in Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed-Heh in Jerusalem and dedicated to social and environmental awareness, will be in New York City March 5-6 to present the U.S. premiere of the work at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The sixty-minute piece, choreographed by troupe artistic director and cofounder Noa Wertheim, is set to an original score by Avi Belleli performed by violists and vocalists Galia Hai and Oud Eliahu Dagmi and vocalist Ilai Bellelil. Ten barefoot dancers (Sian Olles, Liel Fibak, Sándor Petrovics, Shani Licht, Etai Peri, Daniel Costa, Hagar Shachal, Jeremy Alberge, Korina Fraiman, and Yotam Baruch), dressed in white or gray shirts and dark pants (the costumes are by Sasson Kedem), move about Roy Vatury’s stage, which ranges from a chessboard-like appearance (the lighting is by Dani Fishof — Magenta) to being covered in dirt, creating an ever-changing ground of abstract shapes and patterns. “In the last few decades, some wonderful dance artists have established an important place in Israel’s cultural landscape, and Vertigo Dance Company is among them. Vertigo’s excellent dancers express a distinctive voice through an impressive movement quality — visceral and raw, but with a surprising, acute sensitivity,” BAC founder and artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov said in a statement. The title comes from a quote from Yoma, Chapter 5, Mishnah 4: “And thus would he count: one, one and one, one and two, one and three, one and four, one and five, one and six, one and seven.”

BILL CHATS

Oskar Eustis and Bill T. Jones will talk about their roles as artistic directors on February 11 at NYLA

Who: Bill T. Jones and Oskar Eustis
What: Bill Chats
Where: New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves., 212-924-0077
When: Monday, February 11, $8-$10, 7:00
Why: New York Live Arts artistic director Bill T. Jones sits down with Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis for the next edition of his “Bill Chats” series, taking place February 11 at 7:00. Jones, an award-winning choreographer — among his many prizes are the Tony, the Obie, the 2013 National Medal of Arts, the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors, and the 1994 MacArthur Genius Award — and Eustis, who directed the controversial 2017 Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar that turned the Roman leader into Donald Trump, will discuss the current sociopolitical climate and how it impacts their decisions as artistic directors.

VERKLÄRTE NACHT: ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAEKER / ROSAS

Cynthia Loemij and Igor Shyshko have a brief encounter in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Verklärte Nacht (photo by Maria Baranova)

Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
January 30 – February 3, $20-$25
866-811-4111
bacnyc.org
www.rosas.be/en

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s 2014 streamlined version of Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”), originally an ensemble piece from 1995, is making its New York debut this week, continuing at the Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Jerome Robbins Theater through February 3. The short but powerful forty-minute work from the Belgian choreographer’s Rosas company is inspired by German Symbolist Richard Dehmel’s 1896 poem, which itself inspired Austrian American composer Arnold Schönberg’s romantic 1899 program music (op. 4) for string sextet. Dehmel’s short poem is about a woman who decides to become a single mother, having sex with a stranger. However, after she is pregnant, she unexpectedly falls in love with another man but has to tell him that she is carrying someone else’s child. In the poem, the specific text of which is not in the show, she opines, “I am carrying a child, and not yours; / I walk in sin beside you. / I have deeply sinned against myself. / I no longer believed in happiness / And yet was full of longing / For a life with meaning, for the joy / And duty of maternity; so I dared / And, quaking, let my sex / Be taken by a stranger, / And was blessed by it. / Now life has taken its revenge, / For now I have met you, yes you.” In a piece that was initially rejected by program committees and the public, Schönberg brings to life the emotions ripping through the woman’s soul as well as the man’s. (De Keersmaeker uses a lovely recording by Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic.)

Boštjan Antončič holds up Cynthia Loemij in emotional work at Baryshnikov Arts Center (photo by Maria Baranova)

The dance takes place in a stark black box theater with no accoutrements whatsoever. (The spare lighting is by De Keersmaeker and Luc Schaltin.) The opening is rendered in silence, as Cynthia Loemij (the woman) engages with Igor Shyshko (the stranger). Once the music starts, Verklärte Nacht transforms into an epic expressionistic silent film as Loemij and Boštjan Antončič as her true love repeatedly come together and separate. She falls to the floor again and again, jumps on him with her knees on his shoulder, brings his head to her belly. He stands in the corner, looking away, then runs around the space, lifting and twirling her. On the ground, she motions as if giving birth, exhibiting the pain and loneliness she expects to experience once he ultimately rejects her. She’s in a loose-fitting flower-print dress, a sign of spring and rebirth though muted, while he is in a dark suit and white shirt; both are barefoot. (The costumes are by Rosas and Rudy Sabounghi.) In some ways it is a feminist reinterpretation of thebiblical story of the Garden of Eden; the woman took a bite of a stranger’s fruit and now must face the consequences after being cast out of paradise, but Dehmel, Schönberg, and De Keersmaeker (A Love Supreme, Six Brandenburg Concertos) offer a touching finale. Although its operatic scope may feel a bit dated, the performers’ total mastery of the material and Loemij’s brilliant dancing continue to make the piece involving and compelling.

ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAEKER / ROSAS: VERKLÄRTE NACHT

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Rosas’ Verklärte Nacht has its NYC premiere this week at BAC (photo courtesy Rosas)

Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
January 30 – February 3, $20-$25
866-811-4111
bacnyc.org
www.rosas.be/en

Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and her Rosas company open Baryshnikov Arts Center’s spring season with the New York premiere of Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”), running January 30 to February 3 in the Jerome Robbins Theater. It is set to Arnold Schönberg’s same-titled 1899 piece (op. 4) for string quartet by Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic, inspired by the poem by German Symbolist Richard Dehmel, which begins, “Two figures pass through the bare, cold grove; / the moon accompanies them, they gaze into it. / The moon races above some tall oaks; / No trace of a cloud filters the sky’s light, / into which the dark treetops stretch.” The fifty-minute work will be performed by Boštjan Antončič, Cynthia Loemij, and Igor Shyshko; the lighting is by De Keersmaeker and Luc Schaltin, with costumes by Rosas / Rudy Sabounghi. Music is central to De Keersmaeker’s discipline; in September 2017, she presented A Love Supreme at New York Live Arts, a partly improvised re-creation of the masterful John Coltrane record, followed in September 2018 by her adaptation of Bach’s Six Brandenburg Concertos at the Park Avenue Armory. De Keersmaeker premiered Verklärte Nacht in 1995 with an ensemble but restructured it in 2014 for three dancers, concentrating more on the narrative elements of the poem.

AN EVENING WITH RALPH LEMON AND POPE.L

Bruce Nauman’s “Wall/Floor Positions” is centerpiece of Modern Mondays presentation at MoMA January 28

Who: Ralph Lemon, Pope.L, Adrienne Edwards
What: Dance, response, and discussion
Where: The Museum of Modern Art, Theater 2, 11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves., 212-708-9400
When: Monday, January 28, 7:00
Why: In conjunction with the exhibition “Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts” at MoMA and MoMA PS1, the museum’s Modern Mondays program on January 28 will begin with Minnesota-raised dancer, choreographer, and writer Ralph Lemon offering a meditation on the multidisciplinary artist’s “Wall/Floor Positions,” which is performed daily at MoMA by various dancers. Newark-born visual artist and 2017 Bucksbaum Award winner William Pope.L, who is creating an installation for the Whitney for the fall, will then offer his response to the piece, followed by a discussion with Lemon and Pope.L, moderated by Whitney curator Adrienne Edwards. The wide-ranging Nauman exhibition continues at MoMA through February 25.