The Human Touch–New Choreographers At Columbia University
Plugged in and preoccupied by their iPods, Blackberries and cell phones, young people today rarely allot time for face-to-face connections. Does dance suffer as a result?
The “New Ballet Choreographers” who presented their works in September at The Miller Theatre at Columbia University, sponsored by Works and Process at the Guggenheim, proved that innovation does not necessarily compromise humanity and artistry.
Brian Reeder, a former soloist with American Ballet Theatre, explored the notion of community in the ballet Them, danced by the ABT Studio Company to Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 2. The male lead, Joseph Gorak, struggled to connect with three couples representing society. While the dancers achieved the detached, disenchanted quality of Reeder’s movement with little apparent effort, their self-assurance with interpretation has yet to blossom.
While the girls of the ABT Studio Company lacked artistic confidence, the ensemble of women from New York City Ballet sparkled. Tackling Tom Gold’s Masada with flirtatious ease, the cast led by Ashley Bouder and Sean Suozzi executed quirky head and hand movements and flash-quick pirouettes with a wink and a smile. Masada, like a Concerto Barocco with a Middle Eastern twist, masters the juxtaposition of movement and attains the perfect union of choreography and music (by John Zorn).
Although Gold and his colleague Edwaard Liang are both NYCB soloists, they do not share the same choreographic style. Masada provided light comic relief, but Liang’s choreography tended to the profoundly poetic.
Liang has a beautiful command of the contemporary pas de deux. Watching Softly As I Speak, performed by Maria Kowroski and Albert Evans of NYCB, was like witnessing an intimate exchange of words. Seamless, swooping choreography highlighted Evans’s superior partnering ability, allowing Kowroski’s exquisite extensions, sometimes pulled way off balance, to shine.
Für Alina, Liang’s second pas de deux of the evening, played like a series of haiku. Between short blackouts, NYCB’s Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall seemed to tell a story of a woman lost in thought or feeling. The simple chords of Arvo Pärt’s piano solo resonated as Whelan gave in to the silences between sounds and furnished texture to very still moments. Her genius lies in her ability to involve the audience in her journey. At one point, she stared into the house so deeply and intensely that I wondered what she was thinking.
What a treat to see the likes of Whelan and the stunning Hall in such a personal setting! I left the theater confident that this generation of dancers and choreographers will not let the continuum of dance history falter. Dance, an exceptional form of communication, will remain unaffected by the impersonality of today’s digital world.
Alicia Graf dances with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
