Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Dance Roundup: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO returns to The Joyce and NEW YORK CITY BALLET commits to 21st century choreographers

• By drediman
• February 18, 2023
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Over the past week or so, I was able to attend a pair of dance performances that together featured the works of some of today’s sought after contemporary choreographers. Here are my thoughts, as always.

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO
The Joyce Theater
Through February 19

This week, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has returned to New York for the first time since pre-pandemic times. Now under the new artistic directorship of Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, the eclectic program at The Joyce (RECOMMENDED) understandably finds the Chicago-based company – which this year is celebrating its 45th anniversary – in the midst of transition. The bill begins with perhaps the highlight of the evening, Amy Hal Garner’s As the Wind Blows – a congenial, joyfully danced encapsulation of HSDC’s evolving aesthetic thus far, from its jazz and Broadway origins to its role as the torchbearer of European contemporary dance. The rest of the program is comprised of works that are likely to be familiar to New York dance fans – Kyle Abraham’s show-stopping solo Show Pony, Ohad Naharin’s impossibly sensual B/olero, and Assure Barton’s crowd-pleasing BUSK (the remaining piece in the bill is Ne Me Quitte Pas, Spenser Theberge’s deconstructionist, process-driven duet). By choosing to perform these more frequently-performed dances as opposed to risk charting its own path, I have the sneaking suspicion that the young company is still in the process of forming its new identity in this new chapter of its life.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
David H. Koch Theater
The company’s winter season concludes February 26

Over at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, I also recently had the chance to catch New York City Ballet perform a program made up of works created by 21st century choreographers (RECOMMENDED). The bill opened with the return of Voices by Alexei Ratmansky (the Russian choreographer was recently named the company’s artist in residence). Without a conventional musical score – the piece is set to a collection of spoken passages by women – Ratmansky nevertheless finds texture and musicality in the cadences of speech patterns. The program continued with the world premiere of Keerati Jinakunwiphat’s Fortuitous Ash, which is set to a droning new score by Du Yun (the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer also wrote the music to In Our Daughter’s Eyes, which was performed at this year’s Prototype Festival). Although the Thai American dance-maker has created beautiful shapes and delicate tableaus for ballet, I wish the choreography overall had been more impactful. The performance concluded with one of City Ballet’s blockbusters, Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go. Set to a cinematic score specifically written for the ballet by singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, the work showcases Peck at his very best, even if it is a tad too long and repetitive upon final assessment. The MVPs of the day were Georgina Pazcoguin and Miriam Miller for their heroic dancing in the Ratmansky and Peck pieces, respectively.