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Order and Disorder

The right foil can sharpen the distinct shapes of a choreographic work, making it appear more completely itself through the comparison of another. The application of this concept is what made the third program of New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival especially striking.

Performance

Fall for Dance Festival: Program 3 - Gibney Company in Lucinda Childs's “Three Dances (for prepared piano) / Hannah O’Neill and Hugo Marchand in Angelin Preljocaj's “Le Parc” and Jerome Robbins's “Afternoon of a Faun” / Roderick George’s “The Missing Fruit (Part 1)”

Place

New York City Center, New York, NY, September 20 & 21, 2025

Words

Rebecca Deczynski

Gibney Company in Lucinda Childs’s “Three Dances (for prepared piano).” Photograph by Steven Pisano

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New York City’s own Gibney Company quickly established order on the stage, performing Lucinda Childs’s “Three Dances (for prepared piano),” set to the composition of the same name by John Cage. Eight dancers, all dressed in uniforms of gray tank tops and pants, with a darker charcoal sash around their waist, repeat the same passages of movement as they weave through one another in marching band-like formations. There is an academic quality to their movement, as they hold their shoulders back and arms, often, in a low first position. They jeté and sissone, prioritizing precision and uniformity over personalization.

These principles hold through all three passages of the piece. In the second, the dancers stand in pairs, each grouping under its own spotlight. Sequentially, they perform a series of lifts and turns with their partners. The differences in the choreography for each couple are minute; all feature sweeping arms and legs as the dancers turn, repeatedly, on a central axis. The third and final dance brings them together in a cluster, from which each dancer temporarily escapes to move, for once, alone. Still the group repeatedly pulls them back, and as they repeatedly pause in dramatic poses—dancers side by side stand in similar, though not quite mirror images of each other—the piece takes on a more ceremonial feel. This is ritual and order, building to form a kind of sacred geometry.

Hannah O’Neill and Hugo Marchand in Angelin Preljocaj's “Le Parc.” Photograph by Steven Pisano

The greatest treat of this Fall for Dance program is one that wasn’t in its original plan: Paris Opera Ballet étoiles Hannah O’Neill and Hugo Marchand performed not one, but two pas de deux. The late addition to the program, which followed Gibney Company’s performance, is the pas de deux from “Le Parc,” the Angelin Preljocaj ballet which debuted in 1994.  

Set to the adagio of Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major,” the piece is almost visceral in its intimacy. O’Neill, in a billowing blouse, approaches Marchand tentatively, her movement careful but not at all constrained. From the moment they connect, they are inseparable, their movements conveying more hunger than hesitation. Frequently, the two dancers repeat the other’s movements. They nudge their head against the others’ chest and through their arms; they drag an arm up and down a torso. 

Even while connected, their movement captures a sense of yearning, which crescendos in the piece’s most iconic and awe-inspiring moment. O’Neill, on relevé, presses her lips to Marchand’s and circles her arms around him—and then she begins to float, both her legs extending behind her as she maintains the connection. Marchand, bending his back to elevate his partner, begins to turn in circles, first keeping his arms down and eventually raising them in a euphoric gesture as they spin around, O’Neill levitating in the embrace. It is an unforgettable image—an expression of total abandon that requires total control to sustain.

Hannah O’Neill and Hugo Marchand in Jerome Robbins’s “Afternoon of a Faun.” Photograph by Steven Pisano

When O’Neill and Marchand return to the stage for Jerome Robbins’s “Afternoon of a Faun,” which premiered at City Center in 1953, they trade their passion for more innocent pleasure and exploration, playing two ballet students who have a chance meeting in the studio. Marchand is every bit the star pupil when he begins the piece moving through a sequence of choreographed warmups. When O’Neill enters, sylphlike, they begin a cautious flirtation.

For much of this piece, the dancers cast their gaze outward into the audience, as if looking at their own reflections in a ballet studio mirror. There is an implication that this is how they see each other—rarely looking at one another directly, but instead viewing one another as both participant and observer. Where “Le Parc” is passionate and heady, “Afternoon of a Faun” is careful and regimented; the direct contrast of the two acts not only as a testament to O’Neill and Marchand’s prowess as artists, but a brief survey depicting the power and versatility of a pas de deux.

Roderick George’s “The Missing Fruit (Part 1).” Photograph by Steven Pisano

Roderick George’s “The Missing Fruit (Part 1),” produced by kNoname Artist in collaboration with Pomegranate Arts, closes the program with a striking performance rich in meaning and composition. Set to an electronic score by slowdanger, which includes samples of Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit,” the ensemble piece is mesmerizing in its many layers. Fabric billows when dancers sweep their legs up and around their bodies, and a dense fog, which hovers above them, lends a cinematic quality to the scene. Where the Gibney dancers favored order, the nine dancers in this piece move as if they are bursting with vitality. They seem to channel the music in their bodies, through their hips, and their limbs, which they stretch in expansive kicks and turns. At times, they seem to move in slow motion, undulating their bodies in perfect unison.

The piece, which made its world premiere through this festival, is a segment of a larger ballet in development, which “explores the Black experience within the American social system,” the program notes, adding that it addresses oppression, while also centering “resilience, joy,” and “Afrofuturistic creativity.”

“The Missing Fruit (Part 1)” is ambitious in scale, and its dancers—athletic, expressive, and keenly attuned to detail—bring George’s vision to life in a powerful burst. When two dancers, alone, take the stage in a rapid, acrobatic pas de deux, they are mesmerizing as they jump and twist around, chasing one another across the stage. It is so entrancing that the ending comes as an absolute shock. A flash of light, the sound of a gun, and a dancer now—George himself—on his back. Above his heart, a spot of red glitters, before the stage goes dark.

Rebecca Deczynski

Rebecca Deczynski is a New York City-based writer and editor publishes the newsletter Mezzanine Society. Her work has appeared in publications including Inc., Domino, NYLON, and InStyle. She graduated from Barnard College cum laude with a degree in English and a minor in dance.

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