Fall For Dance: Part 1
City Center’s yearly “Fall for Dance Festival” offers something for everyone in their series of short, diverse works by companies from across the globe. With tickets at $10 a pop, this program is always huge a success.
In “Chui Chai,” Thai dancer Pinchet Klunchun has choreographed an achingly beautiful piece I can’t wait to see again. If the mission of this annual festival is to whet the appetite of new audiences to seek out dance, then Klunchun and his company (totally unknown to me before) accomplished the task.
Klunchen structured his piece with flawless taste using exquisite lighting, breathtaking costumes for the women and a musical score by Sinnapa Sarasas ideally suited to the delicate choreography. The women wore coats encrusted with stones that caught the light and bounced into the eye of the viewer like a firework gone awry. With the serene control and balance of a tightrope walker, the women lifted a flexed foot and placed it (more like exclamation points than mere steps) leading with the heel, then toe, one in front of the other as they made their way across the stage. Klunchun appeared from the dark area at the back of the stage dressed in a black T-shirt and pants and began to take instruction from the lead woman whose task it was to physically transform him into his enemy’s queen, as explained in the program notes. Klunchen learned the flexibility of the hands and fingers, how they bent back to almost touch the top of his hand as he duplicated his teacher’s positions until he became one of them. No part of the piece was more resplendent then the curtain call as the company knelt before the audience to accept the cheers, then gently lifted their heads to give us one last beauteous image.
It is a small wonder that Shen Wei had any energy left in his choreographic soul after doing the Beijing Olympic festivities, but he had enough to stage an excerpt from “Map,” previously shown at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2005. The physicality exerted by his group of stunning dancers was quite astounding. Against a background resembling a blackboard with classroom scribbling scrawled across it, the dancers crawled across the stage floor like multi-legged insects using their remarkable flexibility to stretch their limbs to the dazzling music of Steve Reich. The whole thing had the feel of big city life, but unfortunately went on in repetitive groupings for much too long.
Shen Wei Dance Arts
Photo by Rose Eichenbaum
Larry Keigwin took it upon himself to insert humor in the program with “Fire,” one segment of his longer piece “Elements.” Three dancers romped through some ordinary choreography with long scarves attached to their wrists fanning out like flames. Julian Barnett was decked out in a frightful orange suit that evoked laughter at first glance. He is a gem of a comedian using his facial expressions to buoy up whatever the limits of his technique, and he is a good sport. That’s a gift for a performer.
Closing this first program was Jiri Kylian’s “Soldiers’ Mass,” danced here by The National Ballet of Canada. The work premiered in the Netherlands in 1980, but looked sadly too current in 2008. The strength of the Canadian men’s corps is amply on display unfortunately way into overkill. How many times can this concert of 12 men fall to the floor in a fetal position, cover their faces in despair, raise their hands in anguish and storm into lines crossing the stage, always permitting one to fall out of line, then another, then another (a Kylian choreographic trademark). “Mass” meandered, becoming too repetitive and ultimately tedious. It needs a clean up, a good edit and a fresh approach on war if there is such a thing. If any choreographer can make these adjustments, Kylian can.