Tag: Attila Joey Csiki

A Dance Experience to Cherish

Above: Attila Joey Csiki and Clifton Brown. Photo by Nir Arieli. Click on the image to enlarge.

Sunday January 27, 2013 – I’ve had the great good fortune in recent years to witness some truly unforgettable moments in dance that the rest of the world isn’t privy to. In the Autumn of 2012 Wendy Whelan gave me a precious gift when she arranged for me to sneak into one of her rehearsals – it was such a transformative experience, though I never wrote about it on my blog for fear of getting her in trouble with the powers that be. I had the memorable opportunity of watching Adrian Danchig-Waring’s first-ever rehearsal of APOLLO. And I was at a MORPHOSES rehearsal when Pontus Lidberg kept dancing after the scheduled studio time had run out. He didn’t ask me to leave, he simply danced on in his own private world and I sat there in a breathless state. Yuan Yuan Tan, Katherine Crockett, Maria Kowroski, Laura Halzack, Veronika Part…I’ve seen them all at their most beautiful – up close and personal – freed from the theatricality of a performance and simply working on their craft, immersed in the music and the movement.

Dancers and choreographers have been so kind and generous, welcoming me into their studios and sharing the creative experience with me. In this way I have gotten as close as one can get to dance without actually dancing. At the end of a rehearsal, the dancers invariably will come up for an embrace and always they will say: “I’m all sweaty!” Your sweat is my holy water, please don’t apologize.

So a week ago Attila Joey Csiki (above) contacted me and invited me to a reherasal of a Lar Lubovitch duet, set to Mozart, to be danced by Attila and Clifton Brown at an upcoming gala in Washington DC. Mozart, Lubovitch, Attila and Clifton…what could be finer? I arranged to meet photographer Nir Arieli at the MMAC studios; it turned out to be an hour of dance that I’ll never forget.

Lar Lubovitch created this dancework in 1986 – when the AIDS epidemic was decimating the world – and he named it CONCERTO 622 after the Mozart work usually referred to as “the Clarinet Concerto”. The pas de deux for two men is danced to the concerto’s adagio, music which became familiar to an audience that stretched far beyond the world’s concert halls when it was played in the epic film OUT OF AFRICA.

We arrived at the studio today for the final hour of the rehearsal; Clifton Brown has danced this work before but Attila Joey Csiki has not. Mr. Lubovitch had them ironing out the timing of certain passages, including a big lift which must be honed to perfection to make its effect. The boys ran thru the segment several times, and Clifton’s keen eye and astute preparation soon had it mastered: his wonderfully deep plié as Attila came hurtling towards him was something to behold, and he swept his fellow danseur overhead in one sweepingly seamless motion.

Then Mr. Lubovitch put the music on and the dancers began the first of two full runnings of the duet. Quite honestly my reaction surprised me: chills ran up my spine, my heart started racing, I could barely keep myself from crying. This is a piece that transcends its components – music, choreography and dancing – and speaks to us of things that can only be felt, not seen. The two men are tender and noble, they console and support one another and their passion pulsates just below the surface. The duet is not sentimental or overtly romantic; it has a luminous purity that springs from the celestial melodies of the genius Mozart. The choreographer has found the heart of the music and exposes it to us in movement that seems inevitable. I’ll never again be able to listen to this adagio without seeing Attila and Clifton in my dreamworld.

After a break and a bit more tweaking of certain partnering elements, the dancers began again and once again they moved me so deeply…words can’t express it. If they are this gorgeous in the studio, what will they be like onstage? I sincerely hope we will have a chance to find out.

I hated to see the hour drawing to its close, and was feeling deeply grateful to Mr. Lubovitch for his kindness in allowing us to be in the studio today. Attila and Clifton were packing up, beautifully drenched in perspiration; their mutual affection and admiration was so evident: “We used to be rivals,” Attila said. “And now we are friends dancing together.”

More images from the rehearsal:

Clifton Brown

All photos by Nir Arieli.

January 28, 2013
Lydia Johnson’s Bach-In-Progress

Sunday August 22, 2012 – Kokyat and I stopped in at Lydia Johnson’s rehearsal at Battery Dance on this dreary, rainy day where guest artist Attila Joey Csiki (above) of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company was rehearsing with Lydia’s company for the first time.

For her latest creation, a work for large ensemble, Lydia turns to the music of J. S. Bach. The piece is already well-developed choreographically and despite the fact that this was Attila’s first day working with Lydia, he’s already thoroughly at ease with the style; in fact his signature musicality and the silken flow of his dancing are a natural compliment to Lydia’s beautifully expressive motifs of movement.

A central passage in this new dancework is a duet for Attila and Blake Hennessy-York (above). The boys have already mastered the structure of this duet and they ran thru it a few times, working out details of placement and trying various elements of partnering to achieve the desired smoothness.

Attila and Blake, above.

In a second duet, Attila dances with Lisa Innacito McBride (above).

This duet culminates with Attila falling into a beautiful swoon…

…and then re-awakening.

Kokyat was silently moving around the studio to capture the many different elements of this ballet; above, Laura DOrio and Lisa Iannacito McBride. Since we were seeing it for the first time there was a lot to take in, often with multiple things happening – apropos of Bach – at the same time. In addition to Laura and Lisa, the dancers include:

Kaitlin Accetta

Blake Hennessy-York and Sarah Pon

Lauren Jaeger

Min-Seon Kim…

…and Katie Martin.

It’s always exciting to see the evolution of a new dancework and as always we felt very grateful to Lydia and the dancers for sharing their creative endeavor with us.

Lydia Johnson Dance will perform at Peridance on June 23rd and 24th, 2012 in a programme which will feature the premiere of the new Bach piece as well as ballets sent to music of Philip Glass and Osvaldo Golijov. In addition to the dancers pictured above, Jessica Sand and Kerry Shea will be dancing. Reed Luplau appears as a guest along with his Lubovitch colleague Attila Joey Csiki. Max van der Steere will also be guesting with Lydia’s company. Ticket information here.

All photographes by Kokyat, with more images here.

April 24, 2012
Lubovitch Rep Class with Attila Joey Csiki

Tuesday November 30, 2010 – At Peridance this week, Attila Joey Csiki is presenting a series of master classes in Lar Lubovitch repertoire. Attila invited me to come and watch one of the sessions. Unfortunately both Kokyat and Brian were working their regular jobs so I didn’t have a photographer with me. However, Attila has sent me some photos by Kevin Thomas Garcia from his recent solo appearance at the Trevor Project Gala at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on November 22nd so the photos in this article are from that evening.

The high-ceilinged studio was filled with about two dozen students who came for this second of five classes. Attila told me that about half the dancers present had come the day before and the other half were new faces. There were two guys, both very fine dancers, and several really impressive girls including Emily SoRelle Adams, a dancer I’ve known from her appearances with New Chamber Ballet.

Many of the students had just taken a ballet class in a studio down the hall; Attila told the dancers he was not going to give them a warm-up per se but that the first piece they would be working on – an excerpt from Lar Lubovitch’s 1976 work MARIMBA – would provide a warm-up in itself. He then began to demonstrate the phrase, without music. The series of counts seemed very complex to me but the dancers jumped right in, picking up the moves and port de bras from Attila; his innate musicality turned the demonstration into something of a performance. While I was sitting there trying to remember the initial arm gesture, the dancers had the entire phrase nearly nailed down. They ran thru it a few times and then Attila played the music, telling the dancers to allow the trance-like repetitions to flow thru their bodies. They moved like waves of tall grass in the breeze.

From there he added the second phrase of the excerpt and then the third. In the meantime I had completely forgotten the first phrase. But the dancers didn’t; soon they were all moving in sync thru the extended passage. Attila split them into two groups and they continued running the piece until it was in their muscle-memory. And…they were now thoroughly warmed-up.

Attila then turned to a very different Lubovitch work, a luminous excerpt from Lubovitch’s 2007 DVORAK SERENADE. Again in demonstrating the phrases Attila’s fluid style was so clear. Turning on the rhapsodic music, he had the whole group work the phrase and then broke them into four smaller groups. “This is classic Lubovitch!” he called out as he let the energy of the music flow thru his limbs: “One step bleeds into the next, the movement never stops.”

“Easy…easy!” he cautioned one set of dancers who were poised to start moving across the floor in too aggressive a manner. “It’s lyrical!”

Outside the windows, another crowd of dancers were waiting for the studio. The class had literally zoomed by and the students came forward to curtsey and bow to Attila. One of the fringe benefits of watching a master class is getting to see world-class dancers in action up close. Thus in recent weeks I’ve seen Wendy Whelan, Matthew Rushing, Attila today and with Alex Wong coming up in January.

Attila’s classes continue thru Friday at Peridance, with an 11:30 AM start time. You can take an individual class for $20.

A final photo from the Trevor Project Gala: Attila with pianist Kathy Tagg. Read about the visit Brian Krontz and I made to Attila’s rehearsal for the gala here.

Photos: Kevin Thomas Garcia

November 29, 2010
Lubovitch Rep Workshop @ Peridance

Attila Joey Csiki of Lar Lubovitch Dance Company will be giving a workshop in Lubovitch repertoire at Peridance from November 29th – December 3rd. Information here. Photo of Attila above by Brian Krontz from our recent visit to Attila’s studio rehearsal.

November 25, 2010