Above: Seiko Fujita and Chellamar Bernard rehearsing for Jennifer Muller/The Works. Photo by Brian Krontz.
Friday June 20, 2013 – Two companies shared the stage at New York Live Arts tonight: Elisa Monte Dance and Jennifer Muller/The Works. With two intermissions the evening stretched long, but the diversity of music and the appeal of both Companies’ dancers proved rewarding.
Grass, Jennifer Muller’s newest creation, opened the evening. I had recently seen a studio run-thru of this work, loosely inspired by Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass,
and I feel it’s one of Ms. Muller’s finest. Actually danced on a rectangle of living grass, and enhanced by subtle lighting (Jeff Crotier), Grass profits beautifully by being performed to live music: composer/cellist Julia Kent, seated stage left, wove some melancholy ‘Russian’ nuances into her poignant score which has a slightly folkish feel blended with Glassian lyricism.
Gen Hashimoto, one of Gotham’s most fluent movers, opens the ballet as he wanders pensively onto the patch of lawn. The other dancers come on one by one; the dance flows on Ms. Kent’s rhythmic shifts. In this collective which is not yet a community, many emotional textures are revealed as the dancers seek to form relationships. Olivia Jordan, her silky long hair giving her a vulnerability that was most appealing, seems to be the outsider; only near the end does the group view her with compassion. Having banded together at last, the dancers move off into the late afternoon, leaving Gen to stretch out on the ground in a solitary daydream.
Grass is at once simple and complex; it is a work which will reward repeated viewings since both in terms of choreography and psychological undercurrents it is too rich to absorb in a single performance. The dancers of Ms. Muller’s company – in addition to Gen and Olivia – are Rosie Lani Fiedelman, Seiko Fujita, Caroline Kehoe, Katherine Hozier, Duane Gosa, Chellamar Bernard, and Michael Tomlinson. Both as individuals and as an ensemble, they are beyond beautiful to behold.
Excellence of dancers is one thing the Muller and Monte troupes have in common. The power and authority of the Monte men – Prentice Whitlow, Riccardo Battaglia and Justin Lynch – became immediately evident in their first work of the evening: Unstable Ground. This brooding and unsettlling work is set to a Lois Vierk score that vibrates with dark foreboding. The men are handsomely costumed by Keiko Voltaire. It is a floor-oriented piece in which the dancers seem to strive against the impending collapse of their known world.
Things brighten somewhat in terms of both setting and music with Monte’s Shattered in which Michael Gordon’s score impels the dancers to broader and swifter movement. Maria Ambrose and Riccardo Battaglia have a striking duet, and the red-haired Lisa Peluso dances a spacious, dramatic solo which evolves into another duet with Riccardo. Mindy Lai and Lisa Borres move with fleet-footed assurance among the shifting patterns of the ensemble.
Volkmann Suite, a Monte classic, uses a gorgeoulsy ‘classical’ Michael Nyman score in this tribute to photographer Roy Volkmann. Three dancers – Clymene Baugher (topless), Prentice Whitlow and Riccardo Battaglia (both men in black briefs) – deliver sensual, sculptural partnering in a pas de trois laced with erotic imagery. The atmosphere suggests a photoshoot that turns into an intimate exploration of the models’ bodies and souls. The dancers were magnificent in their physicality and allure.
Speeds, danced by the Muller company, brought the evening to a bright conclusion. In this clever – but not cute – ensemble piece the dancers call out for changes of tempo as they move to Burt Alcantara’s panoramic synthesizer soundscape. All in white and brilliantly lit, the dancers seize on the eclecticism of the musical settings in a series of vignettes ranging from vari-paced walking to utter stillness (Katherine Hozier posing in a white picture-hat to silence). Ms. Hozier and Duane Gosa are a fabulous duo in a long pas de deux that is not long enough, while Rosie Lani Fiedelman and Michael Tomlinson have a sporting time in their jazzy duet. Seiko Fujita periodically interrupts the flow of dance to strike poses while enticing the audience with her quizzical expressions. This vastly entertaining white ballet capped the evening to fine effect.
Oberon's Glade 