Fall For Dance Fails to Live Up to Its Name
Each Fall season, dance lovers come together to enjoy the annual Fall for Dance festival. Costing a mere ten dollars per ticket, this event gives its audience a taste of styles and companies from around the world. If you enjoy a variety of dances, this event is for you. If you only like specific types of dances, this is perfectly fine too; if you do not like what you are seeing, simply wait ten minutes for another performance.
The specific companies performing vary from night to night. It is therefore possible to go to the six different programs spanning the course of ten days this year. The agenda for Thursday September 25th started with “Pithoprakta” by the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, followed by “Love” by Talia Paz, “Lombard Play Piazzolla – The Dance Concert” by the Lombard Twins, “The Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us” by the Kate Weare Company and finally, “From Before” by the Garth Fagan Dance.
“Pithoprakta,” choreographed by George Balanchine, is described as “action by probabilities,” but there is no sense of that throughout the entire performance. Elegance and poise in tradition ballet were no where on the stage. Instead, dancers in black were everywhere, with what seemed to be random bursts of exaggerated helplessness and overexcited gestures. The whole dance consisted of the lead dancers, Elizabeth Holowchuk and Matthew Prescott, who were dressed in white, coming together and being separated again. It was awkward and unnecessary repetition.
As I did not enjoy “Pithoprakta,” I waited and itched for the next performance. This, however, was not worth my time. Choreographed by Sharon Eyal, this dance was supposed to capture the journey through pain, joy, and unity, but the only emotion it evoked was pain. The annoying music by Lisa Germano takes away from the solo performance of artistic director Talia Paz in an excerpt of “Love.” The slow tempo of the song sets the sad mood of the dance. Usually, thoughtful things are done with silence and stillness, but this was not the case.
Luckily, the world premiere of the “Lombard Play Piazzolla – the Dance Concert” did indeed turn things around. With its live band, the tango music by Astor Piazzolla added the perfect touch to the upbeat dancing. Although the dance did not fit the tradition description of “street dance and hip-hop,” the Lombard Twins, artistic directors and choreographers Martin and Facundo, were entertaining, appealing, and compassionate.
The other world premiere, “the Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us,” by the Kate Weare Company was a different story. There was a solo by Leslie Kraus followed by a duet by Douglass Gillespie and artistic director and choreographer Kate Weare. The dance was about relationships, but it made me want to dismiss love as a subject because it lacked the spark usually associated with this emotion.
The night ends with Garth Fagan’s “From Before.” It successfully extracts the essence of African and Caribbean dance. The metallic bright jumpsuits designed by Garth Fagan himself added to the liveliness of the culture. Each dancer had a different move, and there are constant, drastic changes in rhythm and dynamic, but each individual was easily incorporated into the entirety of the performance. The intimacy of the members in group radiates from their dance. This was shown when they pulled Garth Fagan onto stage after the dance, marking the end of the excerpt, as well as the program.
During the Fall for Dance festival, dance companies come together to forge professional identities into the minds of audiences divergent from usual fans. While some might come for such a worthy cause, I would not have done so. Despite its name, the festival certainly did not make me fall for dance; instead, it almost made me fall asleep.
The Fall for Dance took place this year from September 17th to 27th at City Center, 131 West 55th Street in Manhattan.
Carissa Dech
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