Lifted Spirits
Even at his most straightforward, Paul Taylor often imbued his dances with a sardonic wit. Whether invoking darkness or light, he did so with a wink.
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
An enduring image from Jody Oberfelder’s new site-specific dance “And Then, Now,” is of the lithe, 70-year-old choreographer perched up on a tall hill at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, framed by enormous trees and an expansive blue sky. Arms spread wide, the wind ripples through her diaphanous lime green tunic—the same arresting color of two parakeets I saw playing in the grass as the roving performance began. As she communes with the earth and sky, the rushing sound of this windy spring evening is nearly as loud as the violin music playing behind the audience. Her simple gestures and slow rotations alternately conjure a spirit, a memory, a vision of the future. Her multiplicity is a nod to the many narratives that exist simultaneously amidst the remains of 600,000 people.
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Even at his most straightforward, Paul Taylor often imbued his dances with a sardonic wit. Whether invoking darkness or light, he did so with a wink.
PlusTalk about Gesamtkunstwerk! Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s “SCAT!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” is just that—a total work of art: operatic in scale, replete with stellar musicians and singers, and the glorious dancers of Urban Bush Women, the troupe that Zollar founded in 1984, is also storytelling at its best.
PlusOf all of Shakespeare’s plays, “Hamlet” might seem the hardest to adapt into dance. Its long soliloquies and a titular character stymied by indecision do not immediately scream movement potential.
PlusComplexions Contemporary Ballet turned 30 this year, and their two-week residency at the Joyce Theater was a party.
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