It's been a while since the Theater Cat has been able to go on the prowl. A couple of choreography showcases got the claws flexing in anticipation.
Triple B, Brian Briones Ballet, put on a showcase at Steps on Broadway. Not the greatest venue, aesthetically, since both audience and dancers have to work around the support pillars, but that's NYC for ya. Briones had four works on the program, interspersed with two by Ursula Verduzco and one by Vera Huff. I'm not taking them in program order. Like a good scratching post, Theater Cat will start at the bottom and work up.
Five Ninas, by Vera Huff, set to selections by Nina Simone, immediately got my hackles up. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't mind watching someone roll around the floor for the sake of artistic vision. Call it vision if you prefer. I call this vision an absolute waste of a beautiful dancer. Solo works tend to seem longer than they actually are, but over the course of several minutes, the dancer was only on her feet for a total of about thirty seconds. Perhaps this was meant to portray a struggle. I cannot say. For me it felt like a gymnastics floor routine gone horribly wrong - she's fallen and can't get up but is determined to see the thing through, rolling around and around until the music finally stops. A vision of perseverance in the face of disaster, perhaps, and definitely not a vision I want to sit through again. I know some people actually like this stuff, but when I come to see a dancer I expect them to be allowed to actually dance.
Triple B, Brian Briones Ballet, put on a showcase at Steps on Broadway. Not the greatest venue, aesthetically, since both audience and dancers have to work around the support pillars, but that's NYC for ya. Briones had four works on the program, interspersed with two by Ursula Verduzco and one by Vera Huff. I'm not taking them in program order. Like a good scratching post, Theater Cat will start at the bottom and work up.
Five Ninas, by Vera Huff, set to selections by Nina Simone, immediately got my hackles up. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't mind watching someone roll around the floor for the sake of artistic vision. Call it vision if you prefer. I call this vision an absolute waste of a beautiful dancer. Solo works tend to seem longer than they actually are, but over the course of several minutes, the dancer was only on her feet for a total of about thirty seconds. Perhaps this was meant to portray a struggle. I cannot say. For me it felt like a gymnastics floor routine gone horribly wrong - she's fallen and can't get up but is determined to see the thing through, rolling around and around until the music finally stops. A vision of perseverance in the face of disaster, perhaps, and definitely not a vision I want to sit through again. I know some people actually like this stuff, but when I come to see a dancer I expect them to be allowed to actually dance.
The highlight of the evening for me, and judging from the audience reaction as well, was Ursula Verduzco's Bleeding Love. Set to Vivaldi, a woman dances with her demons. All her doubts and fears about herself and her existence worry at her, and also bolster her. It's a Gothic nightmare romp through the psyche of Woman, struggling with who she is, who she wants to become, and who others expect her to be. This is an older work, and I expect it has benefited from past feedback and tinkering.
How else to excuse the mess that was A Flor de Piel, Verduzco's second piece on offer? My program note to self was Stairway to Freebird, a term used to define '70s rock guitar wankers. Come up with one cool riff and play it over and over for ten minutes, until you finally think of another one, and play that for another ten minutes. Problem is, you've got to have an audience that's too stoned to realize you haven't composed a finished work. Some parts had the look and feel of center combinations given in a class. A Flor de Piel could easily be at least two, maybe three works, if the fragments mashed together here were pried apart and allowed to develop individually. I felt most of it borrowed too heavily from Bleeding Love, and if anything the style was taken too much to the extreme. For a moment I thought I was watching a bad remake of Beetlejuice. There was also a runner riff, the dancers running in place apparently in search of some distant goal. They spot it, collectively, but it seems unreachable. There is a pleasant discovery of love, but this section felt disjointed from the others. After this seen the runner riff returns. The use of chairs was a distraction, and made me feel that, if your dancers have to sit down, maybe your piece is too long. Unlike other works on the program, this was the only one I felt did go on too long. But this is why you showcase and ask for feedback, because one cannot create in a vacuum.
Verduzco also danced, in a pair of pas de deux by Briones, well matched with Sean Scantlebury. Lights On, set to Everlast, begins with another of my pet peeves - choreography set to nothing. The work begins in silence, but I can excuse it in this case as the couple's dance quickly devolves into a lovers' spat, expertly pantomimed. In the intimate space of a studio performance, it works well, as the dancers' facial expressions are easily seen. Once the music starts, the dance is a love/hate/love romp, again ending in superb pantomime as the music fades out. The only thing I didn't like was use of the childish, fingers in ears while vocalizing lalalalala to indicate "I'm not listening." I felt the actual vocalization broke the spell of the wonderful pantomime. If staged in a larger space, this vocalization would be much diminished, so why not mime this gesture as well, as a larger space would also require the pantomime be even more over the top.
Amour Nuovo, the other pas de deux, has a salsa feel that could be energized either by having the dancers go barefoot, as if dancing on a beach, or by putting the girl in character shoes, something more substantial than the minimal heel of the jazz technique shoe actually worn. Speaking with Briones at the end of the night, my companion and I suggested this, and also that the work be expanded to four dancers. He was very open to trying out the character shoes, and said he already has plans to develop the piece further.
The strongest piece on the program was a solo from All That Remains, marvelously danced by Misa Mochizuki. The work requires exquisite technique, musicality, and characterization. The danger here is that if any one of those three fall flat, it might become painful to watch. However, as with all of his pieces, Briones knows when to stop.
Amour Nuovo, the other pas de deux, has a salsa feel that could be energized either by having the dancers go barefoot, as if dancing on a beach, or by putting the girl in character shoes, something more substantial than the minimal heel of the jazz technique shoe actually worn. Speaking with Briones at the end of the night, my companion and I suggested this, and also that the work be expanded to four dancers. He was very open to trying out the character shoes, and said he already has plans to develop the piece further.
The strongest piece on the program was a solo from All That Remains, marvelously danced by Misa Mochizuki. The work requires exquisite technique, musicality, and characterization. The danger here is that if any one of those three fall flat, it might become painful to watch. However, as with all of his pieces, Briones knows when to stop.
In Between crosses a hazy boundary between dance and performance art. The lovely baroque music is cut with poetry spoken in English and Spanish. There's also an overlay of dripping, then running water, with a thunderstorm climax to match the emotions of the lead dancer. This piece preceded Bleeding Love, and was separated from it by an intermission. Even so, the thread of underlying but barely concealed emotions ties the two together. If Bleeding Love is the nightmare, In Between is the cold light of day examination which copes with it. It visits the storm of chaos between the demands of life and the demands of self, a place represented not only by the sound of the raging storm, but by the storm of dancers badgering the protagonist both physically and verbally. The corps is an ever-changing maze which the protagonist must navigate, all the time reciting lines of the selected poetry, until she finally, literally screams at them to stop. The storm/chaos diminishes, and she regains her composure, though we cannot know if she has achieved the sought after balance.
Costumes for all the pieces came from Ubcostumesdancewear.com, and all were well chosen and suitable to the works. Bleeding Love's choreography even includes working with the loose tops. I only mention the costume design because UB is Ursula and Benjamin, and if you're putting it all out there you should get feedback on all of it, and there was one choice that, for me, was a real clunker. The costumes for A Flor de Piel were an unflattering and distracting combination of bra tops and hi-lo skirts, giving an overall impression of girls running around not quite dressed for the ball. The tops especially beg to become wardrobe malfunctions, and one of them nearly did. Fortunately the dancer made it to the wings before anything truly escaped.
All in all it was an enjoyable evening, with much more to purr over than to shred. A mixed bag of catnip, to be sure, but promising enough for a Theater Cat YAAASS!
All in all it was an enjoyable evening, with much more to purr over than to shred. A mixed bag of catnip, to be sure, but promising enough for a Theater Cat YAAASS!