Lar Lubovitch Dance Company @ BAC

Sunday November 21, 2010 evening – The culmination of one of my busiest fortnights since I started blogging: a truly enjoyable evening of works by Lar Lubovitch, beautifully danced by his beautiful dancers. This was the Company’s final performance of a sold-out run at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

I suppose North Star would be considered early Philip Glass. He’d been composing for about ten years when he wrote this in 1977. (The ballet premiered in 1978). The music seems denser and less ethereal than many of Glass’s later works, but still very enjoyable to hear. The dancers swirl and flash about the stage individually or in quartets which join and then splinter as the music ebbs and flows. The restless energy of the score is visualized by the choreographer to perfect effect. Photo above: Todd Rosenberg.

Katarzyna Skarpetowska and Brian McGinnis (above, Christopher Duggan photo) performed the duet from MEADOW. Dating from 1999 and originally set on ABT, this work is set to an intrinsically luminous work by Gavin Bryars entitled Incipit Vita Nova.To the uneartly sounds of the counter-tenor voice, the dancers create sculptural shapes as one pose flows into another with silken smoothness. For the perfection of their performance, Skarpetowska and McGinnis were warmly cheered.

THE LEGEND OF TEN is a tribute to the ten members of the Company and – all clad in somewhat ominous but elegant black – the dancers turned it into a tribute to Lubovitch who is surely the king of lyricism among current choreographers. With a central adagio couple (Jenna Fakhoury and Reid Bartelme) surrounded by a lively octet of dancers who often step in unison and sometimes bring gypsy flourishes to their movements, the piece is structurally propelled by the music of the Brahms piano quintet Opus 34. The Lubovitch dancers mesh into a cohesive ensemble but the individual personalities of the dancers also shine thru in this, the latest success in the choreographer’s long catalog of works. (Photo above: Sasha Fornani)

All was going well as I saw the finish line of my 2-week dance marathon approaching, but on standing up for the second intermission tonight, my left knee finally rebelled in earnest. I realized that if I sat for another twenty minutes it would tighten further so I hobbled down to the street and after a few minutes of walking it loosened up enough to limp to the subway. I felt bad missing the last piece on the Lubovitch programme though it was one (Coltrane’s Favorite Things) I’d seen not long ago. My grandmother always told me: “It’s hell to grow old!”