Tag Archives: the joyce theater

HUDSON RIVER DANCE FESTIVAL 2017

Brian Brooks and Wendy Whelan will be among the participants in the 2017 Hudson River Dance Festival (photo by Erin Baiano)

Who: National Dance Institute, Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE, Wendy Whelan and Brian Brooks, Complexions Contemporary Ballet
What: Hudson River Dance Festival
Where: Pier 61 at Chelsea Piers, Hudson River Park
When: Thursday, June 8, and Friday, June 9, free, 6:30
Why: On June 8 and 9, SHS Foundation and the Joyce are presenting the 2017 installment of the annual Hudson River Dance Festival, featuring an impressive lineup of four terrific acts. Former New York City Ballet principal dancer Wendy Whelan has turned toward contemporary dance for her “Restless Creature” project, which includes Brian Brooks; the two recently performed Some of a Thousand Words at the Joyce. Founded in 1976 by New York City Ballet principal dancer Jacques d’Amboise, the National Dance Institute focuses on programs for children; their appearance at the Hudson River Dance Festival will be followed June 17-19 by “Harlem Night Song” at the Skirball Center. The award-winning Complexions Contemporary Ballet has been promoting dance and unity since 1994; next week, Complexions, led by founders Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, will be off to Detroit for Star Dust: A David Bowie Tribute. And Brooklyn-based Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE has been incorporating West African movement into its choreography for decades; choreographer and dancer Brown will bring his immensely talented company to the Fire Island Dance Festival July 14-16 and to the New Victory Theater July 27 and August 3. The free Hudson River Dance Festival takes place on Pier 61 at Chelsea Piers; blankets are allowed, but chairs are not.

IVY BALDWIN: KEEN [NO. 2]

Ivy Baldwin explores grief and mourning in Keen [No. 2] at Abrons Arts Center (photo by Maria Baranova)

Abrons Arts Center, the Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Thursday – Sunday through June 11, $20
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org

In her artist statement, Brooklyn-based dancer and choreographer Ivy Baldwin explains, “Choreography is a way of processing the experiences of my life, my dancer’s lives, and the world around us. . . . I love making dance that is mysterious, darkly emotional, embraces absurdity, and explores twisted humor, violence, and human fragility. . . . As an artist, I strive to let my imagination rule the roost, embrace the chaotic and messy, and most importantly, to be present, open-minded, and brave.” Baldwin opens herself up bravely in her latest evening-length piece, Keen [No. 2], which continues at Abrons Arts Center June 8-11. Co-commissioned by Abrons Arts Center, the Chocolate Factory, and the Joyce as part of Joyce Unleashed, a program that presents experimental off-site works, it is a follow-up to Keen (Part 1), which began Baldwin’s exploration of mourning, grief, rituals, and loneliness following the loss of her longtime friend, dancer, and muse, Lawrence Cassella, who died on January 28, 2016, from the immune system disease HLH. Keen (Part 1) took place at the Glass House in Connecticut, where Anna Carapetyan, Eleanor Smith, Katie Workum, and Baldwin performed inside a glassed-in room (with the audience outside) and along the grounds. (You can see excerpts here.) Keen [No. 2] continues many of the same themes indoors at Abrons, where Baldwin will be joined by Smith and Workum in addition to Anna Adams Stark, Katie Dean, Marya Wethers, Dia Dearstyne, Heather Olson, Kay Ottinger, Tara Sheena, and Tara Willis. The set design is by Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen, who contributed the twisted paper sculptures for Baldwin’s Oxbow at the BAM Fisher in November 2014 (the night we saw it, an ill Cassella was replaced by Luke Miller), with sound by Justin Jones, lighting by Chloe Z. Brown, and costumes by Mindy Nelson. But don’t expect overly sentimental movement filled with sadness; Baldwin favors mystery and absurdity, and, in a rare turn for her detailed perfectionism, has given the dancers the opportunity for structured improvisation. Thus, each show will be different, just as each day is different as people deal with personal loss in their own way.

CROSSING THE LINE — ARTIST’S CHOICE: JÉRÔME BEL / MoMA DANCE COMPANY

(© 2012 Museum of Modern Art, New York. photo by Julieta Cervantes)

MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, Marron Atrium
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday, October 27, through Monday, October 31, free with museum admission, 12:30 & 3:00
crossingthelinefestival.org
www.moma.org

In the fall of 2012, French conceptual choreographer Jérôme Bel presented The Show Must Go On as part of the three-week MoMA series “Some sweet day.” The piece was performed by professional dancers, teachers, and choreographers. Bel is now returning to MoMA for “Artist’s Choice: Jérôme Bel / MoMA Dance Company,” a new, site-specific work that will feature an unusual troupe composed of MoMA staff members, who had to audition in order to be chosen. Bel is a main focus of this year’s Crossing the Line festival, FIAF’s annual multidisciplinary lineup of dance, art, theater, film, and discussion. Bel restaged The Show Must Go On last week at the Joyce, and he is bringing back 1995’s eponymously titled Jérôme Bel for its New York premiere October 27-29 at the Kitchen. At MoMA every afternoon at 12:30 and 3:00 from October 27 to 31, staffers will dance in the Marron Atrium, moving around and among the crowd, many of which are, of course, rather dance savvy. (Maria Hassabi just won a Bessie Award for PLASTIC, her 2016 dance that also took place in the atrium and other locations around the museum.) Others won’t know quite what’s going on, which is all part of the fun.

ORBO NOVO (THE NEW WORLD)

Cedar Lake goes inside and outside the brain in stunning ORBO NOVO

CEDAR LAKE CONTEMPORARY BALLET
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
Through Sunday, October 25
Tickets: $10-$49
212-645-2904
http://www.joyce.org
http://www.cedarlakedance.com

In 1996, neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke from a hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain. It took her eight years to fully recover, and she documented her struggle in the bestselling 2008 book MY STROKE OF INSIGHT: A BRAIN SCIENTIST’S PERSONAL JOURNEY. Her difficult battle — and the fight between the right and left sides of her brain — are vividly and creatively brought to life in Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s stunningly brilliant ORBO NOVO (THE NEW WORLD). The extraordinary seventy-five-minute piece, choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and performed by Cedar Lake’s strong, extremely talented cast of sixteen, examines the human brain in both words and image and is filled with both humor and fear. The show begins as a man and a woman reach out to each other from opposite sides of Alexander Dodge’s complex set, a series of movable interconnected lattice walls that alternately form cages, trapping the dancers, and trellises, up which they climb, or membranes, through with they pass. The company begins by reciting sections of Dr. Jill’s scientific yet playful text, spoken by a rotating series of men and women, individually and in tandem and dressed in contemporary clothing, the words themselves forming a thrilling dance as if moving with the performers’ bodies.

The thrills continue as a series of solos, duets, and trios display exciting dichotomies, evoking both inside and outside, right and left, motion and paralysis, and life and death, with memorable turns by Nickemil Concepcion, Soojin Choi, Jon Bond, Ana-Maria Lucaciu, and the always impressive Jason Kittelberger. From violently shaking their bodies to curling up in fetal positions to crawling up, down, around, and through the grid walls — part erector set, part flattened brain image — the dancers evoke both Dr. Jill’s heartbreak and struggle as well as her joyful recovery in an emotional and physical whirlwind. Meanwhile, behind an semi-opaque black scrim at the back of the stage, the Mosaic String Quartet and guest pianist Aaron Wunsch play Szymon Brzoska’s subtle, compelling score. ORBO NOVO is not just good — it’s mind-blowingly good, pun absolutely intended. Dance theater recently lost its brightest light, Pina Bausch, but has a rising star in Cherkaoui.