by Leigh Witchel
If you’re taking the time to read this review, most likely you care enough about dance to go into depth on it. Most likely, you’re also not the intended audience of Fall for Dance. It’s nominatively meant to bring in a new audience. Don’t let that slant make your fillings ache.
Ephrat Asherie’s “ODEON:Redux” was the kind of calculatedly joyous finale that is red meat at Fall for Dance. She is a breakdancer and choreographer, and her work was wildly eclectic; there were moments of hip hop, breakdance, and capoiera among other forms. It almost seemed unfair to leave out Irish step-dancing.
A high-energy finale to the second program out of five in the festival, “ODEON:Redux” played heavily to the audience and went merrily on the path of least resistance. A woman briefly partnered a man in a ballroom number. A comically anguished section turned into salsa, and everything was played for laughs or applause.
It’s a trend now, and Asherie used percussive dance; a section was done to the dancers’ stamps and claps but she went one further: the dancers came over to a percussionist and banged on his tambourine. Then a trio of musicians came center stage to get their moment in the spotlight.
“ODEON:Redux” was ingratiating and committed to cross-pollinating from a million sources, but it aimed no higher than the comfort zone. Asherie used fine dancers with solid resumes. One of the names on Asherie’s own resume is Doug Elkins, who made his name bringing street dance to the concert stage, but his populism had some juicy subtext below its skin. Watching “ODEON:Redux” made me miss his thoughtful work.
Can we make a drinking game out of painfully exquisite pas de deux stereotypes? Bouréeing backwards in parallel? Drink! Ballerina swoons? Two shots!
Houston Ballet sent two fine dancers, Connor Walsh and Karina González, to dance “Sons de l’âme” (Sounds of the soul), a musical but treacly duet by company director Stanton Welch, originally done as part of a collaboration with pianist Lang Lang. It used two familiar Chopin works, one from Robbins’ “In the Night” the other from Ashton’s “A Month in the Country.”
Walsh was bare-chested, González in a bandeau top, both in bell-bottomed beige tights not-quite-suggesting nudity, and the piece was one pas de deux trope after another. Between the costumes and the steps, it looked as if it was made in 1978, not 2013. It’s not as if “Sons de l’âme” wasn’t fluently crafted or that these conventions are not in fact conventions because they are part of skilled craft. The problem was the lack of purpose behind them, besides chasing applause.
All the tricks were there, all beautifully done by Walsh and González. She rushed to his arms and dove low in arabesque; he pivoted her around. She raced to him and he popped her from a double air turn straight into an overhead press at the climax of the first section.
That’s at least two, maybe three shots. They each did a slide with a rond de jambe while exchanging positions, and then did it some more . . . drink! The first section ended when she swooned to the floor as he supported her by the neck . . . I’ll pour.
The second section started with González braced in an arabesque with an arm entreating to the heavens . . . you know what to do. After that, they both gave a meaningful but completely unexplained pained stare off towards nothing in particular. Three shots, minimum. And right before the end, González went to Vladimir Rumyantsev, who played the Chopin as well as she and Walsh danced. She rested her hands on the piano and listened. Finish the whole bottle. Walsh pressed her up and off, but not before she fluttered her arms right on the penultimate note. Maybe this is a bad drinking game. We’d send too many people to the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
Stephen Petronio’s “American Landscapes” was a lot easier going down; it’s a more substantial work so conceptual issues weren’t as glaring.
First danced in 2019, “American Landscapes” features a triptych of projection screens on the backdrop, with images of the U.S. by photographer Robert Longo. Nine dancers wore the barest hint of a costume.
Petronio is deft at using groups; weaving them in counterpoint and moving them through space, but his biggest gift is how he builds a phrase. His combinations alternate between flowing and incisive, but they most often resemble a long breath. At the opening the dancers held their arms above their heads, quickly moving them to inscribe the air as they jumped. It was beautifully wrought.
Longo’s photographs are also beautiful as well as pungent, but the connection between them and the dance still seemed tenuous. The piece has an analogous mood in the steps that swirl and fall off or collapse. But when was Petronio commenting on Longo’s vision and when was he trading on it?
After a slow movement, Petronio brought the cast back in a staggering, driving line. A woman came out wrapped in an American flag: at first tightly like a cerement, then slowly freed. Two women took a knee, echoing a picture of a black football player. Obvious commentary, but isolated enough it felt dropped in at the last moment, like grabbing a green hat to wear on Saint Patrick’s Day.
The projections moved to a lurid red rose and “American Landscapes” ended after the music came to a halt. In a line across the stage, the dancers breaststroked forward and abruptly pivoted back, one arm overhead.
Like a meal, not every dance performance needs to concentrate on nutrition first. It’s supposed to be entertaining. But it’s exhilarating when you sense that artists are making something they need to, and entertaining you. Fall for Dance gets most exhausting when the dances feel more like what the artists think you want to see, rather than what they need to do.
copyright ©2021 by Leigh Witchel
Fall for Dance Program 2
New York City Center, New York, NY
October 15, 2021
Cover: Stephen Petronio Company in “American Landscapes.” Photo credit © Ian Douglas.
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