Tag: Joshua Beamish

Upcoming: Joshua Beamish/MOVE: the company

Above: Joshua Beamish, photo by David Cooper

Joshua Beamish/Move: the company will be at The Joyce August 4th and 5th, 2015; the performances are part of The Joyce’s Ballet Festival 2015.

Joshua, who recently appeared as one of Wendy Whelan’s choreographer/partners for her RESTLESS CREATURE project, brings a diverse program to The Joyce. Featured works are the U.S. premiere of burrow, a duet for Royal Ballet dancers Matthew Ball and Nicol Edmonds, and the world premiere of Surface Properties, an ensemble work performed by ten dancers from American Ballet Theatre to a score by Mark Mellits and Michael Gordon. Also on the program are excerpts from Pierced, Beamish’s 2013 piece exploring the darker side of love.

On July 30th, Joshua invited me down to the Martha Graham studios on Bethune Street where he showed me a run-thru of Surface Properties. This was only the second time that the dancers went thru the entire piece; it’s a big-scale and very active ballet, and the Mellits/Gordon score is propulsive and wonderfully danceable. Alternating full-ensemble passages with a series of fleeting solos and pas de deux, trois, et quatre, the work sustains our interest in its complex and sometimes whimsical partnering, unexpected match-ups of dancers, stylized port de bras elements, and unabashed physicality.

The dancers, who rarely have a chance to do anything like this at ABT, leapt enthusiastically into this fresh experience, embracing the non-stop movement with technical brilliance and affording an opportunity to savor both their dancing and their personalities at close range. They are a super bunch: Zhongjing Fang, Isadora Loyola, Luciana Paris, Lauren Post, Cassandra Trenary, Stephanie Williams, Sterling Baca, Grayson Davis, Jose Sebastian, and Roman Zhurbin.

I look forward to seeing Surface Properties, costumed and lit, on The Joyce stage.

July 30, 2015
Rehearsal: Knight/Beamish DANCE FOR NEPAL

Above: Lloyd Knight rehearsing a new Joshua Beamish solo, ‘Adoration‘, for the upcoming gala benefit DANCE FOR NEPAL; photo by Nir Arieli

Saturday June 27th, 2015 – On Tuesday June 30th, 2015, DANCE FOR NEPAL will be presented at the Union Square Theatre. The program, conceived by Simona Ferrera, is under the artistic direction of Lloyd Knight, principal dancer of The Martha Graham Dance Company. All proceeds from this gala performance will benefit the survivors of the devastating earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25th, 2015. A stellar group of dancers will perform; tickets and more information here.

On an overcast afternoon, photographer Nir Arieli and I dropped in at the Martha Graham studios for a rehearsal/preview of the new Beamish solo work. The choreographer has chosen the adagio from Haydn’s concerto in C-Major for cello and orchestra: a perfect setting for his fluent and expressive choreography and for Lloyd Knight’s powerful, emotive dancing. Demanding in its physicality, the solo has a deeply spiritual quality which gives Lloyd a perfect impetus for his interpretation: a striking mixture of muscularity and grace.

Joshua Beamish (above, with Lloyd), the Canadian dancer/choreographer and founder of MOVE: the company, was recently seen here in New York City as one of Wendy Whelan’s choreographer-cavaliers in her RESTLESS CREATURE presentation at The Joyce. In August 2015, Josh will be presenting MOVE: the company for two performances at The Joyce. Details here.

The studio atmosphere today was paradoxically calm and intense; I could have gone on watching endlessly since the combination of the music, Josh’s mapping of the movement, and Lloyd’s inspiring dancing were a welcome balm to the spirit.

Here’s a gallery of Nir Arieli’s images from this rehearsal; I have chosen quite a few since they really capture the atmosphere:

Click on each image to enlarge.

June 27, 2015
Joshua Beamish @ Ailey Citigroup Theater

Above: choreographer Joshua Beamish

Saturday October 26, 2013 – The planned New York City premiere presentation of Joshua Beamish’s PIERCED at Ailey Citigroup had to be abandoned on very short notice due to extenuating circumstances. A combination of dancer injuries and a delay in obtaining visas (a result of the recent US government shutdown) caused the Canadian choreographer to assemble a new programme, literally on the spur of the moment. The evening proved rewarding in its own right, thanks to Joshua’s charismatic personality, his gifts as both choreographer and dancer, and the assistance of two of Gotham’s loveliest ladies: Deborah Wingert and Cathy Eilers.

Cathy introduced the evening, describing how she fell under Joshua’s spell right from her first meeting with him at Joyce SoHo a few years ago. A film of a pas de deux from PIERCED was then shown, performed by Harrison James (National Ballet of Canada) and Jo-Ann Sundermeier (Smuin Ballet). The music is by David Lang, and the title PIERCED refers to Cupid’s arrow.

Live dancing started with a solo that followed: Joshua – as the self-described ‘guardian of love’ – danced with hypnotic fluidity: his clarity of movement and caressive port de bras enhance his god-given handsomeness, creating a distinctive self-portrait.

In an interview that followed, Deborah Wingert posed just the right questions so that we got to know Joshua – his process and his way of thinking – without compromising his personal mystique. Many dance interviews fall flat, but Deborah’s thorough understanding of dance from the inside out – as dancer, teacher, choreographer, stager and coach – assured an articulate and meaningful dialogue with Joshua, one coloured by honest emotion.

For now we must put PIERCED on our wish-list and hope that a future opportunity will bring Joshua’s MOVE: the company to New York City in full force.

Tonight’s performance continued with Jacklyn Wheatley of The Ailey School performing a new Beamish solo, Some is Lost, to music by Hauschka. The movement here is a feminine counter-poise to the solo Joshua danced earlier in the evening.

Music from Bach’s cello suite #1 set the stage for Joshua’s expressive dancing of a solo from his 2011 work Allemande. Sticking with the music of the great masters, Vivaldi was then summoned for a particularly satisfying performamce of an extended excerpt from This Black Vale which premiered earlier this year. Davon Rainey, totally at home in Joshua Beamish’s flowing movement style, danced a solo and then a duet in which Joshua kept coming and going, their relationship a mystery. Davon’s second solo was a more animated piece, and then, as the music seemed to fracture, Joshua re-appeared for the evening’s final solo.

Joshua Beamish will be dancing a duet he choreographed for Wendy Whelan and himself at The Joyce as part of Wendy’s production Restless Creature April 1st – 6th, 2014. Further details will be forthcoming.

October 26, 2013