Last year, MOMIX performed BOTANICA at the Joyce, what we called “an eco-friendly multimedia exploration of the four seasons, with the company’s talented cast of ten taking on the roles of flora and fauna, ocean waves, trees, rocks, birds, hornets, a storm, and just about everything else under the sun — well, actually, including the sun.” The inventive group, headed by artistic director and founder Moses Pendleton, is back at the Joyce to celebrate the dance troupe’s thirtieth anniversary, first presenting ReMIX May 11-23, a fortnight of their greatest hits and highlights, including pieces from ORBIT, LUNAR SEA, OPUS CACTUS, and BASEBALL, followed by two weeks of BOTANICA. MOMIX’s pieces range from the awe-inspiring to the gimmicky, constantly surprising audiences with inventive uses of light, sound, costumes, props, and the human body. A Dance Chat with Pendleton will follow the May 19 performance.
Contemporary dance’s reinvigoration and ever-widening appeal at the end of the twentieth century is due in no small part to a bounty of amazing, daring, and boundary-pushing choreographers; among the more prominent is Stephen Petronio, known for integrating visual arts, new music, and cutting-edge fashion into his works. Last year the New Jersey native began celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his company with a whirlwind international tour, culminating at the Joyce this week in a wonderful chronological program that looks back at Petronio’s history while forging ahead into the future. Petronio opens the evening himself with his signature solo, “#3” (1986); in a partially undone tux after what appears to have been a long night, Petronio announces his unique visual language, fluidly twisting and turning his neck and upper body, speaking out with his arms while standing, rooted, at the front of the stage, at times beckoning to the audience. Petronio then lets his powerfully muscled company show its astonishing stuff in the steamy, bravura “MiddleSexGorge” (1990). The dancers torque, thrust, and flex their torsos, pivoting arms and legs with swift, sharp, angular motions to an extended techno-industrial remix of British punk band Wire’s “Ambitious.” Petronio’s explosive take on the AIDS crisis features the men in white corsets and the women in slinky, structured tight black outfits, their serious facial expressions and speedy yet deliberate movement complemented by Wire repeatedly calling out, “Are you hot?”
After intermission, Julian DeLeon performs 1993’s “Love Me Tender,” a cute and charming evocation of the Elvis Presley classic, followed by the trio of Amanda Wells, Reed Luplau, and Shila Tirabassi dancing 1997’s “Foreign Import,” set to an acoustic version of Radiohead’s “Creep,” Wells and Tirabassi angelic in white, incorporating ballet techniques while Luplau, in circus-like garb, moves around and between them demonically, evoking, as the song says, a “weirdo.” The entire company then returns for the world premiere of the dazzling “Ghosttown,” a complicated, unpredictable dance set to the Wordless Music Orchestra’s performance of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s “Popcorn Superhet Receiver.” In front of a screen continually changing colors, the performers, draped in diaphanous, shredded shroudlike costumes, cross the stage with mysterious precision, executing breathtakingly close yet emotionally distant moves. The piece marks a sophisticated new high point in Petronio’s work and a promise of even more exciting things to come.
Petronio will participate in a Dance Chat following the April 28 show. In addition, he will be teaching a master class on May 21 at the Joyce’s Dance Art New York Studios.
Ailey II’s Ghrai DeVore performs in Judith Jamison’s DIVINING, part of three-company season at the Joyce (photo by Eduardo Patino, NYC)
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
April 13-25, $10-$49
212-242-0800 www.joyce.org
Ailey II, ABT II, and Taylor 2 come together at the Joyce for two weeks of performances in repertory, showing off the next generation of talent from these prestigious companies. On opening night, all three will take the stage for a one-time-only special event. After that, they’ll rotate evenings, with Ailey II presenting Christopher Huggins’s ESSENCE, Thang Doa’s ECHOES, and Carlos dos Santos’s PROXIMITY, ABT II performing Jerome Robbins’s INTERPLAY along with world premieres by Roger VanFleteren and Edwaard Liang, and Taylor II staging AUREOLE, 3 EPITAPHS, COMPANY B, and ESPLANADE. In addition, each company will participate in a postshow Dance Chat (Ailey II on April 14, Taylor 2 on April 15, ABT II on April 20), where the audience will get to learn a little more about these young dancers.
New York-based choreographer and former French track-and-field star Pascal Rioult, who was a principal dancer with Martha Graham and formed his own company, RIOULT, in 1994, has an exciting season planned for the Joyce, two programs that include world premieres and a return to his beginnings. Program A, “Folk, Ravel, and Bach,” begins with Rioult’s very first piece, 1992’s HARVEST, which was inspired by the look and feel of Millet’s paintings of peasant life, with music by Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean and Irish traditional group Altan, followed by 2005’s BOLERO. The program concludes with two new dances set to a pair of Bach piano solos (completing the trilogy that Rioult began with VIEWS OF THE FLEETING WORLD) and featuring video animation by Brian Beasley. Program B consists of the evening-length work THE GREAT MASS (2008), danced to Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” The January 21 performance of Program A will be followed by a discussion with Rioult, who gives back to his adopted city through numerous arts-in-education initiatives.
