Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Dance roundup: Dance Reflections continues to fascinate with CORPS EXTRÊMES and SOMNOLE; ABT concludes its fall season on a note of high emotions

• By drediman
• October 30, 2023
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New York’s fall dance season is in full swing, in large part due to Van Cleef & Arpels’ ongoing Dance Reflections festival. This past weekend alone, I took in a rich array of dance offerings ranging from lush classical ballet to a starkly staged solo to a death defying aerial meditation. Read on for my thoughts.

CORPS EXTRÊMES / SOMNOLE
Dance Reflections at BAM and NYU Skirball

Van Cleef & Arpels’ aptly named Dance Reflections festival continued this past weekend with a pair of fascinating “reflections”. First up at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAM Howard Gilman Opera House was Corps Extrêmes (RECOMMENDED), choreographer Rachid Ouramdane’s aerial meditation on the relationship between concentration and extreme athletic feats. Simultaneously serene and death defying, the work allows audiences into the typically shielded headspace of performers as they execute high flying acts (thanks in part to the contributions of Jean-Baptiste Julien’s score and Jean-Camille Goimard’s accompanying video). Featuring a band of fearless acrobats – namely, record breaking tightrope walker Nathan Paulin – Ouramdane eschews any of the showy bravado that usually accompanies such cirque-like acts. By honing in on a calm simplicity, the choreographer reveals a certain elegant poetry in the intrinsic dance/interplay that occurs between human concentration and the staggering acts they enable. Then over at NYU Skirball, I was able to catch the astonishing solo Somnole (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) choreographed and performed by Boris Charmatz (the current artistic director of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal). In the stark and mysterious piece, Charmatz explores the notion of somnolence – or, the state of being on the brink of sleep – through a stream-of-conscience performance in which elements of the subconscious rise from the abyss, artfully manifested via restless sound-making (courtesy of Charmatz’s haunted whistling) and uninhibited movement. Although Somnole may not be to everyone’s taste (i.e., the work falls squarely in the realm of performance art), I found the raw, untethered physicality of Charmatz’s hallucinatory performance to be unforgettable.

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE
David H. Koch Theater

Then uptown at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, American Ballet Theatre wrapped up its strong fall season on a note of high emotions with a tastefully-curated program of 21st century works by Alonzo King, Gemma Bond, and Alexei Ratmansky (RECOMMENDED). The bill began with King’s Single Eye, a new work set to a sensitive contemporary jazz score by Jason Moran. The piece returns to the city after Ballet Theatre premiered the work to New York audiences during the company’s summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House last year. Thankfully, on the Koch’s smaller stage, I was able to better appreciate the subtleties of King’s work, particularly his dynamic and ingenious use of the corps de ballet. In both visual aesthetic (courtesy of designer Robert Rosenwasser) and choreographic flourishes, the work is uncommonly textured and intelligent in its design and construction. Most importantly, I found myself moved by how the dancers – namely, Calvin Royal III, Christine Shevchenko, Herman Cornejo, Devon Teuscher, Thomas Forster (all excellent) – transcended the steps to convey ideas and emotions much larger than either the dance or themselves. Emanating organically from King’s work was Gemma Bond’s flowing pas de deux Depuis le Jour. Set to a gorgeous aria from Gustave Charpentier’s opera Louise (beautifully sung live by Maria Brea) and featuring the lovely pairing of soloist Katherine Williams and corps member Jose Sebastian, the dance is an emotional depiction of an expansive, timeless love. The afternoon concluded with On the Dnipro, Ratmansky’s one act story ballet of love, jealousy, and forgiveness set to a score by Prokofiev. Efficiently staged and tautly choreographed, the ballet once again found the company running high on emotions. Particularly impressive were the sensational up-and-coming Jarod Curley and the incandescent principal Catherine Hurlin as a returning soldier and his passionate new love interest.