BWW Reviews: Lar Lubovitch: 45th Anniversary Season at the Joyce

Lar Lubovitch Dance Company: 45th Anniversary Season at the Joyce Theatre

By Jennifer Fried

Lately, all my conversations about dance return to one question: who is making new, exciting, and unique contemporary dances. It's true, we've all been jaded by So You Think You Can Dance, as well as the abundance of contemporary modern companies with beautiful, but nonetheless, gooey movement. Lar Lubovitch's program last Friday night at the Joyce was everything you would expect from contemporary dance-a little bit of floor work, a little bit of partnering, a modern torso with ballet legs and a cast of technical, and athletic dancers. However, Lar Lubovitch did deliver entertaining concepts and wonderful music for the audience.

The evening opened with three duets. The first, Duet From Concerto Six Twenty-Two, was danced by two men all dressed in white. The piece seemed to be about support, as the dancers leaned on one another and helped each other fall and rebound from the floor. The most striking moment of the piece was the opening, as the dancers walked onto the stage, pedestrian but powerful. Next, Vez appeared to be about sultry sensual love between a male and a female. The live Latin inspired music performed by vocalist Mellissa Hughes and guitarist Gyan Riley enlivened the movement, which may have otherwise been a bit predictable, despite the dancers' captivating theatricality and chemistry with one another. Finally, The Time Before the Time After concluded the series. The duet seemed to capture the moment when love turns bad and quarrelsome, well rendered by the dance steps and overall mood. The layout of the three pieces offered the audience a theatrical and intellectual stimulating experience.

After intermission, Men's Story was performed by nine men dressed in what seemed like costumes conceived as something between a butler and a soldier. At first, I found the piece to be delightfully absurd. The music, an audio collage created by Scott Marshall, had alien noises, airplane noise, and amusing bits of conversation. As the piece carried on, the choreography was exactly what would be expected, full of picture-perfect freeze frame moments executed sharply by the dancers. However, a clear concept emerged of an awkward boy who undergoes puberty, discovers sex, and matures to adulthood. The piece concluded with a cast member walking out on stage with a marionette puppet attached to him. Suddenly the piece came together perfectly, as the awkward boys matured to adult men. They had become fathers of other little boys who would then undergo the same coming of age. Lubovitch told a story through movement so clearly that everyone in the audience was captivated and exploded with applause.

If there's anything to take from Lar Lubovitch, it's that the intellectual lay-out and concept of pieces can be more important than the choreography itself. Dance enthusiasts have seen the same sorts of movement over and over again; what they want is to be engaged and emotionally invested in the piece, which Lubovitch expertly succeeded in.

Photo credit: Lar Lubovitch Dance Company

To post a comment, you must register and login.