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gussolomonsjrtest · 5 years

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MERCE CUNNINGHAM CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

The Merce Cunningham centennial celebration reached a peak during this week of his birthday, April 16th, with two of the major events of the celebration – “Night of 100 Solos,” happening live at London’s Barbican Theatre, New York’s BAM Opera House, and UCLA’s Royce Hall; In addition, a program of Cunningham dances done by three different companies at the Joyce Theater, April 17-21 – a feast of Cunningham dancing, done entirely by dancers who never danced in his company.

NIGHT OF 100 SOLOS. (l-r): Reid Bartelme, David Norsworthy, Sara Mearns

On Tuesday night the Howard Gilman Opera House at BAM came alive with a 90-minute “event” comprising solos extracted from Cunningham’s six-decade-long dance repertory. Twenty-five dancers ranging in age from a college student to nearly seventy-years old, present and former members of companies like Martha Graham, Mark Morris, Trisha Brown, Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Companies, Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M., New York City Ballet, and Charlotte Ballet, among others, took part. Each dancer was taught a number of solos – four it seems – by nearly two-dozen former Cunningham dancers, many of whom are now official stagers of his work.

NIGHT OF 100 SOLOS. Kyle Abraham

What emerged from this panoply of movement was recognition of the astonishing inventiveness of Cunningham’s movement and the clarity of performance it mandates. The dancers, one and all, evinced their respect and admiration for the work and its creator with near flawless embrace of his uniquely exposed style, technical execution, and kinetic spirit. Here in New York, the passages were arranged in space and time by Trish Lent, director of licensing for the Cunningham Trust, and assistant stager Jean Freebury, with simultaneous and overlapping soloists, weaving their individual pathways around each other on the large BAM stage. Sometimes spatial proximity suggested contact between them – a hand on a shoulder, a mutual focus, a conjunction of leaps or turns or balances that became accidental duets, trios, and quartets.

NIGHT OF 100 SOLOS. (l-r): Lindsey Jones, Christian Allen

Another refreshing aspect of the presentation was the diversity of bodies, training backgrounds, and, especially, races of the dancers onstage, many of whom are audience favorites in their home companies. It has been a concern that Cunningham had only four African-American men and no women in the six-decade history of his company. In my opinion (as the first of those four men) it was because Merce loved jumping for himself and his men, and his vision of the ideal female dancer was Carolyn Brown, whose perfect lines and articulation were ballet-worthy. Certainly, had he lived further into his nineties African-American women would have been invited into the troupe.

NIGHT OF 100 SOLOS. (l-r): Jaquelin Harris, Claude “CJ” Johnson.

Tuesday night, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Tamisha Guy, Jaquelin Harris, sterling dancers and women of color proved their mastery of the style, and Kyle Abraham, Claude “CJ” Johnson, Christian Allen, and Chalvar Monteiro, evinced all the balance, articulation, and power of any of Cunningham’s alumni. Vicky Shick, one of Trisha Brown’s original company, and Keith Sabado, long-time Mark Morris dancer – both in their sixties – extended the age range we’ve come to associate with Merce’s dancers, except for himself.

NIGHT OF 100 SOLOS. The company in John Cage’s 4′33″

There was a full-company teaser ending, in which the dancers filled the stage for Cage’s “4’33”,” a silent work for piano in three movements. Light changes indicated the ends of sections, when the dancers shifted poses. There was humor – Jason Collins jumping with tin cans strapped to his loins and Sabado’s circling the stage on a bicycle, which Merce did in “Variations V.” For Cunningham aficionados it was fun to try to recall the sources of the excerpts and remember the dancers who had done them originally and succeeded them in various generations.

NIGHT OF 100 SOLOS. (l-r): Cecily Campbell, Jason Collins

The décor was a digital art work created by Pat Steir, which kept the cyclorama morphing slowly in white and gray images that looked like ghostly stone columns or precipitation – rain, snow, sleet – or cascading waterfalls. Lighting designer Christine Shallenberg provided an appropriately celebratory atmosphere. Reid Bartelme, who also performed, and his costume design partner dressed the dancers in wonderful pastels and richly-hued leotards, unitards, bike-tards, and jumpsuits with various necklines and sleeve lengths. Bartelme and Sarah Mearns, both in pale lavender, shared the stage at one point, doing solos at the same time.

NIGHT OF 100 SOLOS. Keith Sabado

A thunderous standing ovation greeted the dancers at the end, from an audience who felt reassured that Cunningham’s works are in good hands. Although the technical skill and precision Cunningham’s work required were ahead of their time in the last century, they are by now within the grasp of most present-day elite dancers, hence the Cunningham legacy of dance excellence seems assured for generations to come.

photos by Stephanie Berger

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The following evening, April 17, the centennial celebration continues with a program at the Joyce of three Cunningham dances done by three companies – Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, directed by Cunningham’s associate director Robert Swinston; Ballet West from Salt Lake City, directed by Joffrey Ballet alumnus Adam Sklute; and Washington Ballet from D.C., directed by long-time ABT principal Julie Kent – doing, respectively “Suite for Five” (1956), “Summerspace” (1958), and “Duets” (1980).

CENTRE DE DANSE CONTEMPORAINE ANGERS.(l-r): Claire Seigle-Goujon, Anna Chirescu, and Carlo Schiavo in SUITE FOR FIVE. photo by Arnaud Hie

“Suite for Five” doles itself out sparingly to a minimal piano score by John Cage, “Music for Piano,” played live by Adam Tendler. It starts with a solo, danced by Carlo Schiavo in blue tights and matching polo-neck shirt has unmistakable Cunningham signature moves like backwards walks in parallel, big jumps with open, bent legs, and low-slung crouches. Next, Catarina Pernão in bright yellow epitomizes Cunningham’s ideal female, linear and erect with balletic articulation of legs and feet, and calm balances on a foot while the other leg sweeps in long extensions that arc slowly around the body.

CENTRE DE DANSE CONTEMPORAINE ANGERS.(l-r): Gianni Joseph, Carlo Schiavo, Claire Siegle-Goujin, Catarina Pernão, and Anna Chirescu in SUITE FOR FIVE. photo Arnaud Hie

Then follows a trio by the other two women, Anna Chirescu, and Claire Seigle-Goujon, in orange and purple and Gianni Joseph in lime green. Brief blackouts separate the sections, so each is a kinetic haiku. The dance contains Cunningham signatures – long, slow balances, bursts of leaping that switch direction midair, deep lunges, male-female duets, straight from the ballet lexicon but designed with unusual shapes and leverages. This was the company’s premiere performance of the dance, and because Cunningham movement is so exposed with nowhere to hide, the dancers’ nervousness showed.

CENTRE DE DANSE CONTEMPORAINE ANGERS. (l-r): Gianni Joseph, Claire Seigle-Goujon, and Anna Chirescu in SUITE FOR FIVE. photo by Arnaud Hie

BALLET WEST. Joshua Whitehead in SUMMERSPACE. photo by Beau Pearson

“Summerspace” (1958) lends itself to performance by ballet dancers. In it, Cunningham was exploring ways of conquering various kinds of turning modern dancers weren’t used to. In 1966, it may have been the first of his dances set on the New York City Ballet. Salt Lake City’s Ballet West definitely has the technical skill to pull it off, and it’s nice to see dancers of color in some of the roles. Katlyn Addison does fine with the brutally difficult crossing, originally done by Viola Farber, in which she slides one foot forward while bending the other until she is balanced sitting on the heel of the supporting leg with the leading leg stretched ahead of her, while unfolding her arms to the sides.

BALLET WEST. Gabrielle Salvatto in SUMMERSPACE. photo by Beau Pearson

Kyle Davis another African-American dancer hangs suspended in midair in his high-flying leaps. And Joshua Shutkind has piercing focus and dynamic sharpness in the role Cunningham created for himself. The stager, Banu Ogan, managed to communicate the evanescence of the piece, which is accompanied by Morton Feldman’s sparse “IXION” and dressed in white unitards, stippled with pastel dots by Robert Rauschenberg, that match his beautiful, pastel pointillist backdrop that camouflages the dancers, when they pose motionless in front it.

Artists of BALLET WEST in SUMMERSPACE. photo by Beau Pearson

WASHINGTON BALLET in DUETS. (l-r): Tamako Miyazaki and Alexandros Pappajohn. photo by Dean Alexander

The Washington Ballet takes on “Duets” (1980), staged sensitively by Melissa Toogood, another of the Cunningham’s dances that is well suited for the skills of a classical company. Made for six couples in Mark Lancaster’s costumes and lighting, the clothes are an amazing mixture of colors – pastel and bright – and shapes – tights, leotards, skirts, and dresses – that seem random but blend wonderfully.

The piece has moments of dry humor, when a man keeps switching the hand that holds up his partner’s raised arm in a balance, while she holds a tilted passé. And another woman alternates hands on her partner’s outstretched support arm. The dancers can also exit the stage by suddenly disappearing behind a curtain upstage that cuts off the right third of the upstage.

WASHINGTON BALLET in DUETS. (l-r): Javier Morera, Nicole Graniero, Alexandros Pappajohn, and Tamako Miyazaki. photo by Dean Alexander

The dancers overlap each other’s duets, entering or crossing the stage, as if they are continuing their duet offstage. Cunningham is showing us the portion of action that appears in the space we can see, and encourages us to imagine the parts that might be happening out of our view. Here, Cunningham’s movement does not depart radically from ballet vocabulary; it just expands it, working in parallel as well as turned out and adding some un-balletic torso action that the dancers have seemingly embraced under Toogood’s expert coaching,

(Note: some photos of companies at The Joyce may be of alternate cast members)

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chenardery · 7 years

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List of girls that may break your heart

Aaliyah Abbey Abbie Abbigail Abby Abigail Addison Adrian Adriana Adrianna Adrienne Aileen Aimee Aisha Aja Alaina Alanah Alana Alanna Alayna Aleah Alecia Alejandra Alena Alesha Alessandra Alex Alexa Alexandra Alexandrea Alexandria Alexia Alexis Alexus Ali Alice Alicia Alina Alisa Alisha Alison Alissa Aliyah Allie Allison Allyson Allyssa Alma Alondra Alycia Alysa Alysha Alysia Alyson Alyssa Amanda Amani Amber Amelia Amy Ana Anabel Anais Anastasia Andrea Angel Angela Angelica Angelina Angelique Angie Anika Anissa Anita Anjelica Anne Annamarie Anne Annette Annie Annika Annmarie Antoinette Antonia April Araceli Ariana Arianna Ariel Arielle Arlene Asha Ashanti Ashely Ashlee Ashleigh Ashley Ashli Ashlie Ashly Ashlyn Ashlynn Ashton Asia Aspen Astrid Athena Aubree Aubrey Audra Audrey Aurora Autumn Ava Avery Ayana Ayanna Ayla Bailee Bailey Barbara Baylee Beatrice Beatriz Belinda Berenice Bernadette Beth Bethany Betsy Betty Beverly Bianca Billie Blair Blanca Bobbi Bobbie Bonnie Brandi Brandie 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