Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Midsummer dance in the city: PILOBOLUS at The Joyce, Jakob Karr’s AIN’T DONE BAD, the return of BAAND TOGETHER

• By drediman
• August 2, 2024
• No Comments

Even during these dog days of summer, dance fans in New York nevertheless still have a number of worthwhile options to choose from. As per usual, read on for my thoughts on a number of key offerings currently playing on the boards of the city.

PILOBOLUS
The Joyce Theater
Through August 11

Pilobolus’s “Memory” program (RECOMMENDED) represents the second set of works in the company’s thoughtfully curated three-week re:CREATION residency at The Joyce Theater (you can read my thoughts on the “Dreams” program here). Using the notion of memory to frame the evening, the selected works collectively made for an intriguing progression from playful to somber. On the playful front, you have the well-worn favorites Untitled and Behind the Shadows. I particularly took to the classic Untitled, its whimsy wrought in subtle psychological nuances. The tone shifts with the two pieces that follow, Noctuary and Tales from the Underworld, the latter of which is enjoying its New York premiere with these performances. Both portray the pain of loss with poetic candor — Noctuary unfolds with great fragility and fraught emotions, while Tales from the Underworld takes its cue from the Orpheus and Euridice tale, casting a dreamlike glaze over the ubiquitous myth. The evening closes in a completely different manner with Branches, which beguilingly investigates memory from the long-view perspective of the natural world. In typical Pilobolus fashion, the dancers impressively showcased their extraordinary athletic ability — strength, control, and utter fearlessness — in their efforts to conjure vivid worlds merely through the use of their bodies.

AIN’T DONE BAD
Pershing Square Signature Center
Through August 31

Currently over at the Pershing Square Signature Center, the full length dance piece Ain’t Done Bad (RECOMMENDED) has settled in for a lengthy summer-long run. The clearly commercial venture is the brainchild of Jakob Karr — of So You Think You Can Dance? fame — who uses the recordings of songs by country singer Orville Peck to depict a tough gay coming out story. Like the current Justin Peck / Sufjan Stevens collaboration Illinoise on Broadway (its acclaimed limited run concludes next week; if you still haven’t seen it, I encourage you to catch it if you can), Ain’t Done Bad is in essence a hybrid between dance and musical theater — a “dansical”, if you will — using aspects of both genres to move the narrative forward. Through a series of emotionally resonant if predictable scenes, Karr charts the difficulties of living in an unaccepting household, the intoxication of first love, the ensuing conflicts (naturally), and the eventually reconciliation amongst all. Although the piece is sweet and occasionally touching — largely due to Peck’s richly textured songs — there’s an overarching sense of vagueness that permeates the proceedings. Nevertheless, I applaud the efforts the talented ten-strong company, who capably handle the demands of Karr’s admirably fluid and expressive choreography.

BAAND TOGETHER DANCE FESTIVAL
David H. Koch Theater
Through August 3

This summer also brings us the return of BAAND Together Dance Festival (RECOMMENDED), courtesy of Lincoln Center’s expansive Summer for the City programming. The big news this year is that the performances have been, thankfully, moved indoors to escape the elements (especially crucial this sweltering summer). Created as a way for the city’s five marquee dance companies — Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem — to healthily emerge from the pandemic on a united front, the spirit of comradery still burns brightly in this year’s eclectic, crowd-pleasing lineup. The works bing presented are George Balanchine’s Duo Concertant (City Ballet), Hans Van Manen’s Solo (Alvin Ailey), Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Sombrerísimo (Ballet Hispánico), Brady Farrar’s Night Falls (ABT), and William Forsythe’s Blake Works IV (The Barre Project) (Dance Theatre of Harlem). Suffice to say, each were performed with energy and received with great enthusiasm by the well-sold audience. On the night I attended, memorable takeaways included the thrilling musicality of the Ailey dancers in Solo, the inspired classical ballet eloquence of Night Falls (especially from the sublime SunMi Park), and the reliable brilliance of Taylor Stanley and Indiana Woodward in the regularly programmed Duo Concertant.