REVIEW: Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, Program 4

International perspective keeps us healthy. Last night, in Program 4 of Fall For Dance at New York City Center, all four companies travelled from abroad to perform. The color, energy, and philosophies they brought along with them imbued the Festival with a new flair. If you wanted something different, this was the night to come.

REVIEW: Chunky Move at The Joyce Theater

Chunky Move’s “Connected,” which opened this evening at the Joyce Theater, is technically about five security guards and a stolen work of art.

But wait, it takes a second to get there.

What we see when we enter the Joyce house is an industrial and yet finely structured sculpture by kinetic sculpture artist Reuben Margolin. Margolin’s creation fills the stage. Its foundation is a wheel, mounted to a metal base, connected to hundreds of fine translucent strings that are threaded through a grid near to the ceiling and finally cascade making a perfect square of lines in the upstage right corner. It is immediately intriguing, even without Chunky’s movers.

REVIEW: Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center: Program 3

When the Australian Ballet first took the stage in banana yellow unitards, I was thrown off by the choice. However, when Gemini is put in the context of 1973, the year Glen Tetley first created it for the company, it starts to make a whole lot more sense. The piece is a mix of classical and contemporary ballet movement, set to the highly dramatic Symphony No.3 from Hans Werner Henze. There is no question of the athleticism of the two men and two women on stage. They move with force and confidence, flaunting stamina and flexibility. The choreography hovers between intimately human at times and distant and inanimate in the next second. There are many disconnected thoughts; I feel as if in a conversation full of non sequiters.

REVIEW: Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, Program 2

Tonight, despite New York’s first snowstorm of the season, die-hard dance fans put on their big coats and poured into New York City Center for the 2nd program of the Fall For Dance Festival.

The curtain opened on Vertigo Dance Company, with a single spotlight on one man in a voluminous, multi-layered grey costume. His body dives and swift, flinging arms are stark against a big white house-shaped backdrop. Before long, he is joined by one, and then a whole village of movers like him. Mana feels ritualistic. The dancers are donned in embellished pedestrian clothing with layer upon layer of fabric; the women wear bright head scarves. As they flock; they share a history and a language.

REVIEW: William Forsythe’s “i don’t believe in outer space” at BAM

All the way home from Lafayette Avenue at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House to Washington Heights I have been processing Forsythe. I am swimming in his images, in the sounds of his performers’ voices, in their wild presence, and in the bucket of feelings delivered this evening by “i don’t believe in outer space.”