Limón's New Look

Limón Dance Company launches its 80^th anniversary season with three works that represent the company’s past, present, and future. They not only celebrate José Limón, but demonstrate how his themes guide the company in fresh new ways. The evening opens with a vintage 10-minute solo, “Chaconne” (1942), adapted for this program as a welcoming and inclusive ensemble number, with a large, multi-generational cast of company dancers past and present, students, and faculty. In a restaging of “Emperor Jones” (1956) artistic director Dante Puleio moves a culturally outdated work into relevance. The news of the evening arrives in the finale with “Jamelgos,” a new work exploring queer masculinity by Diego Vega Solorza, who hails from the same region of Mexico as Limón.

Performance

Limón Dance Company: choreography by José Limón; Diego Vega Solorza (premiere)

Place

Joyce Theater, New York, NY, October 15, 2025

Words

Karen Hildebrand

Limón Dance Company in José Limón's “Chaconne.” Photograph by Steven Pisano

“Chaconne” salutes the extended Limón community. In simple black pants and jazz shoes, the performers move in formation, then smoothly peel off into various patterns and groupings that transform the solo work into a hall of mirrors. There’s a fascinating array of physical capacity and performance verve. Among the series of leans, balances, and flicking feet is a lovely motif where the dancers raise their arms overhead, wrist to wrist, fingers drooping like flower stems.

Limón Dance Company in “The Emperor,” restaged by Dante Puleio after José Limón. Photograph by Steven Pisano

Without changing the original choreography (Daniel Fetecua Soto, who succeeded Limón in the title role in 2011 is reconstruction coach for the project), Puleio gives “The Emperor Jones” a contemporary polish. Inspired by a Eugene O’Neill play, the storyline depicts a despot who takes control of a Caribbean island, causing the people to rebel. Originally performed in black face with voodoo rites, the setting is now Wall Street, with graffitied panels and a NYC cityscape projected on the rear scrim. The dancers are office workers in white button downs and skinny ties. Johnson Guo, in the lead role, wears Louboutin dress shoes (with the iconic red soles), a garish red ascot tie, and takes as his throne a giant leather armchair. A prop that remains from the original is a holstered gun that dangles lewdly between his legs. There’s an unmistakable homoerotic tension between the Emperor and the Man in White, danced by Joey Columbus. The new “Emperor Jones” lands as caricature. But as political satire it’s well-aligned with the spirit of the “No Kings” protest marches.

Limón Dance Company in “Jamelgos” by Diego Vega Solorza. Photograph by Steven Pisano

After intermission, quite a different tone pervades. “Jamelgos” (a poor-tempered horse) opens with an unclothed, male figure hanging from a pull-up bar. Endowed with the swollen musculature of a body builder, he faces away from us. The muscles gleam. Below him is another body, laid out on the floor with what will soon be revealed as a silky blonde horse’s tail. The hanging man drops from the bar to mount the prone figure and the two slowly merge into a centaur that clops crookedly off into billowing fog. It’s visually stunning. From here on, I can’t tell whether the characters are meant to be humans or horses. These centaurs, six dancers in all, walk on two legs, with horse tails strapped to their rears and the crowns of their heads. The dancers move—choreography full of the breath, gravity, fall and recovery that are hallmarks of Limón technique—then freeze as if a painting. Lighting by Corey Whittemore paints the flesh with golden opulence. At times, the dancers flip their ponytails like members of a drill team on the playing field. (On the night I attended, one lost her headpiece and masterfully continued on as if the mishap was part of the plot.) An electronic score by Ebe Oke sets an otherworldly mood. The final section is a slow-motion wrestling match, the movement behavior more horsey than human. I see it as a full Botticelli tableau brought to voluptuous life.

Karen Hildebrand

Karen Hildebrand is former editorial director for Dance Magazine and served as editor in chief for Dance Teacher for a decade. An advocate for dance education, she was honored with the Dance Teacher Award in 2020. She follows in the tradition of dance writers who are also poets (Edwin Denby, Jack Anderson), with poetry published in many literary journals and in her book, Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books). She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Originally from Colorado, she lives in Brooklyn.

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