Above: Blake Hennessy-York and Sarah Pon of Lydia Johnson Dance rehearsing WHAT COUNTS
A hit at its New York City premiere performances in June, 2015, choreographer Lydia Johnson’s WHAT COUNTS is now available for watching on Vimeo. Tune in here.
The jazzy score comes to us from The Bad Plus, and the ballet is performed by a quintet of Lydia Johnson Dance’s distinctive dancers: Sarah Pon, Blake Hennessy-York, Laura DiOrio, Katie Martin-Lohiya, and Chazz Fenner-McBride.
Above: Blake Hennessy-York and Sarah Pon of Lydia Johnson Dance rehearsing WHAT COUNTS
A hit at its New York City premiere performances in June, 2015, choreographer Lydia Johnson’s WHAT COUNTS is now available for watching on Vimeo. Tune in here.
The jazzy score comes to us from The Bad Plus, and the ballet is performed by a quintet of Lydia Johnson Dance’s distinctive dancers: Sarah Pon, Blake Hennessy-York, Laura DiOrio, Katie Martin-Lohiya, and Chazz Fenner-McBride.
Above: Katie Lohiya and Oliver Swan-Jackson of Lydia Johnson Dance
Friday April 17th, 2015 – Lydia Johnson Dance are in rehearsal for their upcoming New York season; the performance dates are June 11th thru 13th, 2015 at Ailey Citigroup Theater. Tickets here. The programme will feature two world premieres: “What Counts” set to music by The Bad Plus, and an as-yet-untitled piece to music by Osvaldo Golijov and Marc Mellits. Last season’s “Barretts Mill Road: A Remembrance”, danced to Mozart, will return; and the evening includes a revival of “Untitled Bach” (2010) for ten dancers which is set to selections from Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas.
Lydia’s choreography continues to impress as a unique fusion of ballet and contemporary dance; her intense focus on musicality has set her creations in high profile among the vast number of danceworks being made here in Gotham year after year. Her dancers seem constantly to find new depths of eloquence in performing these ballets which are essentially abstract but rooted in matters of the heart. Thus the dancing is never dryly technical but instead reverberates with evocations of the human spirit.
The Company’s ballet mistress Deborah Wingert had given company class prior to my arrival at the studio today; Deborah has also been engaged in coaching for the Company and is working closely with Lydia in molding a unity of stylistic expression for these dancers who come from diverse training backgrounds.
Here are some images of the LJD dancers at work:
Chazz McBride and Min-Seon Kim
Grant Dettling and Sarah Pon
Katie Lohiya
Laura DiOrio, Blake Hennessy-York, Min Kim, Chazz McBride
Chazz McBride, Blake Hennessy-York
Chazz and Blake
Laura DiOrio
Blake Hennessy-York
Oliver Swan-Jackson, Katie Lohiya
Sarah Pon, Blake Hennessy-York
So lovely to run into Lisa Iannicito McBride at Lydia’s studio today; Lisa has been a key member of LJD and several important works were created on her. She took time off to have a wonderful son; it was just great seeing her again!
Here’s Lisa in Lydia’s CROSSINGS BY RIVER, a gorgeous female-ensemble work set to Golijov that I am dying to see again…photo by Kokyat.
Above: Lydia Johnson Dance‘s Brynt Beitman, Laura DiOrio, Blake Hennessy-York, and Sarah Pon; photo by Dmitry Beryozkin
Sunday January 25th, 2015 – Lydia Johnson Dance offering another event in their Salon Series this afternoon at the Gelsey Kirkland studios; arriving guests got to watch part of a Company class led by the Australian dancer/actor Reed Luplau; excerpts from Lydia Johnson’s danceworks (including a work-in-progress) were performed by the Company, followed by a discussion of the influence of classical ballet on the performing of contemporary dance.
Reed Luplau (above) performed with Lydia Johnson Dance in 2012, dancing in Lydia’s SUMMER HOUSE and CHANGE OF HEART, and he continues to work with LJD in a teaching role. In 2013, Reed had a principal role in the award-winning film FIVE DANCES. He is currently in rehearsal to reprise the role of Bosie (which he created) in Theodore Morrison’s opera OSCAR with Opera Philadelphia.
Images from Reed’s Company class:
Above: Chazz McBride and Oliver Swan-Jackson take a flying leap; Oliver has just signed on with Lydia Johnson Dance
Above: appearing for the first time with Lydia Johnson Dance, Katie Keith Dettling and Grant Dettling have had only a couple of LJD rehearsals to date but they very kindly agreed to be part of today’s Salon presentation
Above: Reed Luplau
The first of the afternoon’s danced excerpts were then presented: from WHAT COUNTS, set to jazz-based music by The Bad Plus. Here are some moments from this work, which is set for five dancers:
Above: Girl’s trio – Sarah Pon, Laura DiOrio, Katie Lohiya
Lift: Chazz Mcbride, Sarah Pon, Blake Hennessy-York
All that jazz…Katie…
…Chazz…
…Sarah…
…Laura.
Central to WHAT COUNTS is a pas de deux danced by Blake Hennessy-York and Sarah Pon (above).
Blake and Sarah were married in September 2013; there’s a gorgeous portfolio of their wedding photos – some of which I’d never see before! – here.
BARRETTS MILL ROAD: A REMEMBRANCE is Lydia’s lyrically nostalgic 2013 dancework set to piano works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Katie Keith Dettling and Grant Dettling – another married couple! – performed an excerpt from this work today, having only just begun working on it a few days earlier. They showed the serene confidence of beautifully-trained dancers, accustomed to dancing together:
The afternoon’s final dance offering was of excerpts from a new work-in-progress which uses music by Mark Mellits and Osvaldo Golijov. Calling fora large ensemble, the piece features a lot of partnered sequences. Here are some images from this new creation:
Brynt Beitman, Laura DiOrio, Blake Hennessy-York, Sarah Pon, Chazz Mcbride, Min Kim
Chazz Mcbride, Min Kim
Brynt Beitman, Blake Hennessy-York
Chazz and Min
Chazz and Min
Chazz and Min
Brynt, Laura, Blake, Sara
Laura, Brynt, Sarah, Blake
Sarah and Blake
Above: At the end of the presentation, the dancers posed for a photo with Lydia Johnson Dance founding Board member Rayna Pomper who, with her husband Marc, held the first party in support of LJD 15 years ago. Left to right: Min Kim, Chazz Mcbride, Laura DiOrio, Katie Keith Dettling, Grant Dettling, Ms. Pomper, Oliver Swan-Jackson, Katie Lohiya, Blake Hennessy-York, Sarah Pon, Brynt Beitman, and Reed Luplau.
All photography by Dmitry Beryozkin.
The works performed today will be seen on February 28th, 2015, when Lydia Johnson Dance appear at the South Orange Performing Arts Center in New Jersey. Details here.
Above: Sarah Pon and Blake Hennessy-York of Lydia Johnson Dance
Sunday July 13th, 2014 – Lydia Johnson Dance will have a return engagement at the Great Friends Dance Festival in Newport, RI performing on July 18th, 19th, and 20th, 2014. Details of the festival here.
For these performances, Lydia has created a new work entitled WHAT COUNTS set to two songs by The Bad Plus: ‘Seven Minute Mind‘ (danced by a trio of women) and ‘For My Eyes Only‘ (a pas de deux). Today I stopped in at Lydia’s studio where she was putting the finishing touches on what is still a work-in-progress; in fact, she is considering adding a third section…but for now, it’s a two-movement dancework that will travel to Newport.
The music is jazz-oriented and really appealing, and Lydia has set it in her unique balletic style with a particularly pleasing stylized quality. More than anything, the ballet reminded me of Balanchine’s classic APOLLO, in part because it features a single man and three women and also because the music has a Stravinskyian tinge to it.
Sarah Pon, Laura DiOrio and Katie Martin Lohiya
Trio
Blake and Sarah: duet
Final pose
Rehearsal photo: dancers Kerry Shea and Eric Williams
Lydia Johnson Dance have been appearing at the Great Friends Dance Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. The Company presented Lydia’s intimate 2005 work, IN CONVERSATION. This piece, set to Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto, was the first work of Lydia’s that I ever encountered…and from there my admiration for her choreography, musical choices and wonderful dancers has grown exponentially over the ensuing years.
Above: dancers Laura DiOrio and Anthony Bocconi in the studio
The Festival performances of Lydia’s IN CONVERSATION drew a very positive review:
“Another visiting dance company – Lydia Johnson Dance from New
York and New Jersey – provided a lovely romantic and classical mood as
two couples danced contemporary pas de deux to Philip Glass’s
Violin Concerto. Further defining the classicism of the dance was the
attire – the two men in long black pants and tops, the females in white
and wearing halter tops. The couples displayed, seemingly without effort, slow motion pirouettes that lifted lightly over heads and backs, and
graceful, precise coordinated movements that extended even to the the
fingers and wrists.
The artistry of
this group was truly breathtaking and must be seen to be appreciated.
The lifts, swirls, leaps, turns, falls, risings and meldings were performed
with such athleticism and grace that watching the changing
geometry of limbs it seemed as though Da Vinci anatomy sketches had come
alive to dance.”
~ Sandra Matuschka
The Newport Daily News
Lydia Johnson Dance will return to the Great Friends Dance Festival to perform NIGHT OF THE FLYING HORSES on July 25th, 26th and 27th. Ticket information here.
Above: Reed Luplau of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in a guest appearance with Lydia Johnson Dance @ Peridance. Photo by Kokyat.
Haunting and unique, Lydia Johnson’s SUMMER HOUSE is set to chamber works by Philip Glass. In this dreamlike piece, a man and three women recall a period of time spent together in a small Summer cottage far from the world’s hustle and bustle. There is no set narrative, and we do not know who these people are or how they came to be in the same space at the same time. Cross-currents of desire, despair and jealousy weave thru the dance though we can never be sure whose point of view we’re experiencing at a given moment. Thus SUMMER HOUSE leaves much to the imagination of the viewer, and for me – who once spent a marvelous summer in an old Victorian house on Cape Cod – it stirs up all sorts of memories.
Reed Luplau gives a deeply poetic performance in SUMMER HOUSE. Though he interacts with each of the three women, there’s no way of telling where his heart lies; it may in fact lie elsewhere altogether. Reed uses his entire body as an expressive instrument, keeping the physicality of the movement ever-flowing and with his beautiful face illuminated by the emotional colours of the music.
The three women dancing in SUMMER HOUSE – Laura DiOrio, Lisa Iannacito McBride and Jessica Sand – are steeped in Lydia Johnson’s style. Maintaining the mystique that surrounds the piece, we do not know if the girls are sisters, longtime friends or simply strangers who have come together for a brief span of time. Though each relates to the male character individually, there’s also an undeniable bond between the three of them. Thus another layer of enigmas wraps itself around the SUMMER HOUSE. The questions remain unanswered as the lights fade at the end.
Here are some of Kokyat’s images from SUMMER HOUSE:
Jessica Sand & Lisa Iannacito McBride
Laura DiOrio & Reed Luplau
Reed Luplau
Reed Luplau, Jessica Sand
Laura DiOrio, Lisa Iannacito McBride, Jessica Sand
Reed Luplau
Reed Luplau
Reed Luplau
Laura DiOrio, Reed Luplau
Laura, Reed & Lisa
Reed Luplau in Lydia Johnson’s SUMMER HOUSE. Reed will soon be appearing in the feature film FIVE DANCES, written and directed by Alan Brown.
All photos by Kokyat.
Sunday February 26, 2012 matinee – Lydia Johnson Dance presented two works at Peridance this afternoon. The performance marked the first full presentation of Lydia’s new, as-yet-untitled work to music of Osvaldo Golijov as well as a revival of her 2006 piece to music of Philip Glass: FALLING OUT.
Kokyat and I have been following the creation of the Golijov work from its earliest days, visiting the studio periodically to view the work’s progress. Lydia is so generous in sharing her creative process, giving us an extraordinary insight into how ideas become danceworks.
Click on each image to enlarge:
In the Golijov, a trio of women first appear in soft golden gowns; their black-lace bodices provide a Spanish feel. Remaining in place, they perform a gestural ritual implying both spirituality and cleansing.
Quietly they move in a circular pattern…
…which is expanded by the entry of two more women.
With an unexpected juxtaposition of calm and urgency, the women continue their mysterious rites as the music takes on a soulful expression.
Images of silent despair and of consolation are evoked…
…blended with uplifting gestures of unity and hope.
The final movement of the Golijov is marked by themes of rocking as each girl in turn swoons into the arms of her sisters to be gently lulled.
In this work, choreographer Lydia Johnson seems to be telling a story yet the mystique of the five women – who they are and what their rituals mean to them – is left to the imagination of each viewer. One of the things about Lydia’s work that I most appreciate is her unerring taste in music: she always seeks out the best, whatever genre she might decide to work in. Here, the religious themes of the Golijov pieces she uses offer a wide range of interpretative images, from the earthy to the sublime. Darkly handsome in atmosphere, this dancework resonates with the bonds of sisterly unity and affection; it steers clear of sentimentality, thus striking a deeper chord.
Always a choreographer’s greatest good fortune: to have dancers who understand and communicate the imagined nuances of a given work. The lyricism and grace of the five women dancing in the Golijov maintained the spirit of the music and movement from first note to last. They are (above): Sarah Pon, Lisa Iannacito McBride, Kaitlin Accetta, Laura DiOrio, and Jessica Sand.
Details of the afternoon’s second work, set to music of Philip Glass, will appear here shortly.
All photographs by Kokyat.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 – Thie past weekend, dancer Jessica Sand (above, photographed by Kokyat) performed a solo in Lydia Johnson’s newest work, an untitled piece set to music by Osvaldo Golijov. Today, Jessica was teaching this solo to a roomful of young dancers as part of a week-long Lydia Johnson Dance workshop at Peridance.
Jessica is a thoughtful and patient teacher; she, along with her LJD colleagues Kaitlin Accetta, Laura DiOrio and Lisa Iannacito McBride, demonstrated and coached the participating students in the phrasing on an individual basis. Lydia’s silky fluidity of style suits Jessica so well; imparting this feeling goes beyond just the execution of the steps. The dancers were soon settling into the flow and responding to the spirituality of the Golijov score.
Above: Kaitlin Accetta of Lydia Johnson Dance.
The studio was so crowded that it quickly became necessary to break the dancers into three groups so they had sufficient room to dance full-out. There were a lot of very appealing movers in the studio, including three dancers I’ve had my eye on over the recent months:
Bethany Lange…
Lauren Jaeger…
…and Yuki Ishiguro.
Kaitlin, Jessica and Lisa observing the dancers; moving on from the solo passage, the students tried a partnered trio motif which produced considerable mirth as they worked on being in the right place and the right time to catch a swooning fellow dancer. As the clock ticked down to the final minutes of studio time, it seemed that the dancers really wanted to continue.
I’ll never know how dancers manage to look like a million bucks (Kaitlin Accetta, above) before noon!
The workshop follows on Lydia’s highly successful presentation of the Golijov work along with her 2006 piece FALLING OUT, set to music of Philip Glass. Mary Cargill writes about the February 26th matinee performance here.
Sunday February 26, 2012 matinee – Lydia Johnson Dance presented two works at Peridance this afternoon. The performance marked the first full presentation of Lydia’s new, as-yet-untitled work to music of Osvaldo Golijov as well as a revival of her 2006 piece to music of Philip Glass: FALLING OUT.
Kokyat and I have been following the creation of the Golijov work from its earliest days, visiting the studio periodically to view the work’s progress. Lydia is so generous in sharing her creative process, giving us an extraordinary insight into how ideas become danceworks.
Click on each image to enlarge:
In the Golijov, a trio of women first appear in soft golden gowns; their black-lace bodices provide a Spanish feel. Remaining in place, they perform a gestural ritual implying both spirituality and cleansing.
Quietly they move in a circular pattern…
…which is expanded by the entry of two more women.
With an unexpected juxtaposition of calm and urgency, the women continue their mysterious rites as the music takes on a soulful expression.
Images of silent despair and of consolation are evoked…
…blended with uplifting gestures of unity and hope.
The final movement of the Golijov is marked by themes of rocking as each girl in turn swoons into the arms of her sisters to be gently lulled.
In this work, choreographer Lydia Johnson seems to be telling a story yet the mystique of the five women – who they are and what their rituals mean to them – is left to the imagination of each viewer. One of the things about Lydia’s work that I most appreciate is her unerring taste in music: she always seeks out the best, whatever genre she might decide to work in. Here, the religious themes of the Golijov pieces she uses offer a wide range of interpretative images, from the earthy to the sublime. Darkly handsome in atmosphere, this dancework resonates with the bonds of sisterly unity and affection; it steers clear of sentimentality, thus striking a deeper chord.
Always a choreographer’s greatest good fortune: to have dancers who understand and communicate the imagined nuances of a given work. The lyricism and grace of the five women dancing in the Golijov maintained the spirit of the music and movement from first note to last. They are (above): Sarah Pon, Lisa Iannacito McBride, Kaitlin Accetta, Laura DiOrio, and Jessica Sand.
Details of the afternoon’s second work, set to music of Philip Glass, will appear here shortly.
All photographs by Kokyat.
Oberon's Glade 