Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Dance recap: AILEY unveils new works by Hope Boykin and Lar Lubavitch and THE TROCKS celebrate 50 years at The Joyce

• By drediman
• December 18, 2024
• No Comments

This week, I caught up with a pair of crowd-pleasing dance companies. As per usual, read on below for my thoughts on these year-capping performances.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
In repertory through January 5

Last weekend, I returned to New York City Center to take in two more world premieres by Alvin Ailey Dance Theater (RECOMMENDED) (you can read my review of my first visit to Ailey this season here). The first of these was Hope Boykin’s Finding Free, a piece of dance theater about overcoming adversity to attain personal freedom. Set to a new jazz-infused score by pianist and composer Matthew Whitaker — played live, thankfully — the curtain rises on a downtrodden ensemble confined to tightly-wound, constricted movements, performed in unison. As the piece unfolds, dancers individually break free from the restrictive mold to perform dramatic choreographic vignettes of hardship and transcendence. Ultimately, they come together transformed (and newly garbed in flowing costumes), their movements now expansive and outwardly oriented. Taking place quite literally in some heavenly realm, Lar Lubavitch’s Many Angels — the second of the new works — seems in some ways like a thematic sequel to Boykin’s Finding Free, portraying souls at peace and at rest. As informed by the lush pre-recorded strings of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Lubavitch creates pretty shapes and stage pictures, but offers little in terms of poetry and emotional heft. True to form, the Ailey dancers — gorgeous, as always — nonetheless attacked the ethereal, pose-heavy choreography with impressive strength and flexibility. The program concluded with considerably more substance with Ailey’s tried and true classic Revelations, which predictably sent the audience out into the night on a high.

LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO
The Joyce Theater
Through January 5

Last night, the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (lovingly referred to by dance fans simply as “The Trocks”) commenced a three-week holiday run at The Joyce Theater in Chelsea (RECOMMENDED). It’s a big year for the popular cross-dressing dance parody troupe, which this year celebrates five decades in the business of putting a smile on dance fans’ faces. The well-judged opening program was comprised of two pieces — The Trocks’ vampiric take on Giselle‘s iconic second act and the world premiere of Symphony by choreographer Durante Verzola. The more overtly comic Giselle parody — featuring a backdrop by artist Edward Gory — was amusing but only intermittently, it’s broad slapstick humor only occasionally landing. Nevertheless, the corps of vampiric Wilis popped with individuality and personality. The highlight of the evening was Verzola’s Symphony, a sparkling, robustly choreographed new work that takes its inspiration from George Balanchine’ Symphony in C. Set to musical selections by composer Charles Gounod, the piece showed off The Trocks’ trademark playfulness and campiness in their best light — less overtly slapstick, more winkingly wry — as well as the company’s strength as dancers (clean, precise, solid pointe work). Throughout, the dancing was bright and full of character, with a particular standout being Takaomi Yoshino (humorously also known as Varvara Laptopova), who essentially stole the show as Myrtha in Giselle and brought vibrant musicality to Symphony.