BWW Reviews: Playing with the Rules at Fall for Dance

New York City Center's October 10th Fall for Dance program smartly suited up with Lucinda Childs' Concerto and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (which indirectly featured Sara Mearns of New York City Ballet) in Ohad Naharin's Minus 16. Sandwiched between those uplifting works were William Forsythe's U.S. premiere of Neue Suite by Semperoper Ballett Dresden and a hip hop duet with Sebastien Ramirez and Honji Wang. Traditionally, the span of each Fall for Dance program granted City Center an edge in the battle for audiences in dance's busiest season. This night was no different.

Childs' company revival in 2009 reinserted an original Judson voice in the contemporary dance conversation. Concerto demonstrated the authenticity and clarity of that voice for a primer on composition (Pam Tanowitz's choreographic tendencies can certainly be seen in Childs' methodology). Meticulously charted with a Cunningham sensibility (minus the element of chance), Childs' work unfurled like a billowing sail. Always maintaining a vertical axis, the dancers methodically steered the tide of momentum. Primarily traveling on a lateral plane, directions changed with a coupé piqué in chassé after chassé, and turn after turn. The sideways movement created tidal waves of movement, cresting in expansive saut de basques. Her dancers moved as tightly coiled springs, stretched to capacity as they traveled the stage with minimal steps.

Ever slippery in focus, Forsythe utilized similar transitions as Childs, his dancers walking in and out of Neue Suites. Each coupling wore a unique color, just about spanning the rainbow. The tone changed with each pair and each color but the musical smorgasbord jarred in transitions. Forsythe began with a couple gentle pas de deux, each carrying a plie en pointe motif. Tension built as dancers' once lingering six o'clock penchée quickened to slash the air. A couple in red defied the dimming lights with an inverted spiral lift that garnered gasps from the audience. The final coupling, in black, dispensed the murkiness of previous sections with startling aggression.

AP15, a playfully wistful duet by and for Sebastien Ramirez and Honji Wang celebrated the virtuosity of "breaking" in a tender narrative. Wang knelt center stage, exploring the looseness of her limbs as Ramirez glided by upstage. In these opening passes, Wang and Ramirez independently deconstructed pop 'n lock vocabulary with gracefully flicked wrists, isolations of the torso and limbs. They initially encountered each other's space intimately but without much actual contact for a magnetic push/pull effect. Wang's palm placed on Ramirez's head became a source of exploration rather than force. Ramirez also had his turn in this game of redirected gravity where victory came from least resistance rather than domination. Two of the most stunning moments: Ramirez jumped over Wang as she fell backward, caught herself on his leg, and, her ascension from a three-point stand to a triple twist into Ramirez's arms. Their duet restated typical breaking swagger in a more subtle cat-and-mouse game; we, the audience were the mouse, caught up in their movement.

Celebrating the life of former Ailey dancer and wife of Ohad Naharin, Minus 16 ultimately imbued joy despite its somber moments. Samuel Lee Roberts hammed it up as emcee-gone-rogue. The company, suited up, took the stage behind him, mimicking his jazzy play. The curtain fell and then rose with the dancers seated in a semicircle pounding out variations on a theme. Feet stomped, hands shook, heads whipped, and Michael McBride relentlessly led a rippling cannon of rising bodies, hyperextended torsos, with heads seeking heaven. In increasing freneticism, clothes were shed. A trail of women moved solemnly to ticking sounds. McBride and Megan Jakel's pas de deux perhaps encapsulated Naharin's sentiments toward his wife - a devastating but resigned goodbye. Striking a chord with Ailey's gospel traditions, the funeral became a rousing farewell. The troupe took to the house, bringing audience members to the stage for a good 'ole time. Among the additions? Sara Mearns, of New York City Ballet, whose own troupe performs in the festival for a fresh reminder that Fall for Dance often signals the start of something new for many an artist.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Ohad Naharin's Minus 16 by Paul Kolnik

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