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Best of the West

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” so began Charles Dickens’s masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities. Happily, while dance was in fine form in Los Angeles in 2024, the politics in America took a deep dive toward, well, fascism on November 5, and the repercussions are already being felt. Yet, with the effects of COVID and two wars still raging, we can feel encouraged—even hopeful—with the state-of-the-art form in the City of Angels.

Roxanne Steinberg in “Flower of the Season 2024: Hatsu-Kaze (First autumn breeze).” Photograph by Denise Leitner

The year began with a bang—literally—as Diavolo|Architecture in Motion gave the world premiere of “Existencia” in January at the Soraya, the commissioner of the 70-minute dance drama. Created by Jacques Heim and his troupe, it commemorated the 30-year anniversary of the Northridge earthquake. Featuring a multi-national cast of 22 dancers, one aerialist (Bandaloop founder, Amelia Rudolph), three actors and a bespoke score—performed live onstage by Grammy-winning percussionist Antonio Sánchez (“Birdman”), and his wife, Grammy-nominated vocalist/loop artist Thana Alexa—“Existencia” was peak daredevilry: A thrill ride of epic proportions, with dancers leaping, spinning and performing over, under and around an array of enormous structures, it was humanity that ultimately prevailed.

February brought Pina Bausch’s 1975 acclaimed opus, “The Rite of Spring,” and Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo’s meditative work, “common ground[s],” to sold-out audiences at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Performed by 31 dancers from 14 African countries on a stage covered in mounds of peat - and set to Stravinsky’s iconic score—“Rite” included a number of dancers trained at École des Sables, Acogny’s school in Senegal, while Airaudo, an original member of Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal, had danced the role of the “Chosen One” numerous times. The connection between the works was two-fold, and with each piece dealing with sacrifice and gender relationships, both proved heart-stopping, gasp-inducing theater.

Diavolo in “Existencia” by Jacques Heim. Photograph by Luis Luque

The single-named Butoh legend, Oguri, delivered not one, but two thrilling performances in 2024: In March, he again teamed up with Spain-based Andrés Corchero in “Body as Evidence, Phase II,” at the Electric Lodge for the 21st iteration of his ongoing series, “Flower of the Season,” with the duo once more riffing on the idea of Ray Bradbury’s famed dystopian novel, “Fahrenheit 451.” Featuring acts of sheer agility, endurance and a certain amount of hilarity—balancing books on their necks—the dancers were not a pair of bookends, but bookheads, while their synergy was palpable, with puppet-like moves accentuating their physical differences but also attesting to their camaraderie.

Also part of the Flower Season series, Oguri and his wife, Roxanne Steinberg, performed improvisational dances to live music in September, with this writer checking out their final performances. Steinberg proved a master of the body while moving stealthily to the otherworldly music of Paul Chavez, who deployed a range of guitar licks, gurglings and string-pluckings, topped off with dollops of assorted electronica. 

Oguri, responding to Vinny Golia’s tootlings on assorted instruments, including a Peruvian ram’s horn, and an assortment of clarinets, became the jazz body, the Chaplinesque clown, bewitched by the music, trying, as it were, to grasp the sounds in his weaving hands. These were dances never to be repeated, yet were performances for the ages.

Oguri and Andrés Corchero's “Body as Evidence, Phase II.” Photograph by Denise Leitner

The embodiment of ‘rizz’—charisma in today’s coolspeak, dancer, choreographer, filmmaker Benjamin Millepied mesmerized at Walt Disney Concert Hall in April in a one-night performance, “Unstill Life,” with pianist Alexandre Tharaud. The founder of LA Dance Project, Millepied, along with his performance partner offered a seven-part feast filled with precise rhythmic ornamentations and tossed off with a flourish by both performers. Millepied traversed the stage with whipping turns, and yes, even tossed off a few casually executed fouettés, his avian-like swooping arms sculpting the air.  

With Beethoven’s immensely difficult Piano Sonata No. 32 ending the program—and Tharaud completely up to the task—Millepied appeared to be channeling the musical master, his arms frenzied, his moves jagged, before he raced up the stairs in the Hall, Sebastien Marcovici trailing him with a video camera. 

Marcovici was also on cinematic duty at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts for Millepied’s “Romeo & Juliet Suite,” seen in October. Choreographed for the superb members of his LADP, the cast featured a female duo (Daphne Fernberger and Nayomi Van Brunt) in the titular roles on opening night, the first of four performances that also featured a male duo, as well as the traditional heterosexual pairing, 

Having been staged “in progress” at various venues since 2018 and 2019, this L.A premiere was dancing at its finest, with Shu Kinouchi, whose insanely lofty leaps and dizzying spins infused his Mercutio with non-stop jolts of bravado, only one of the many gorgeous dancers on view. The production, which retained its beating Shakespearean heart - one shot through with eternal beauty—was testament to Millepied’s multi-prismed vision that offered a new take on balletic, gender, and theatrical ideals.

Daphne Fernberger as Romeo and Nayomi Van Brunt as Juliet in Bemjamin Millepied's “Romeo & Juliet Suite.” Photograph by Juliet Benhamou

Two events at Highways Performance Space in November—“A Day of Simone Forti,” and “Rudy Perez Retrospective”—were highly emotional tributes honoring a pair of titans of post-modern dance through films, movement, dialogue and readings. Forti, who will turn 90 in March and has advanced Parkinson’s disease, began her concert with a touching rendering of her 1970 work, “Molimo.” Wheelchair-bound, she blew into a piece of flexible tubing while being swung around by Terrence Luke Johnson, who, when he wasn’t spinning his charge in circles, also blew into a tube. Another highlight in an afternoon of highlights was Forti’s “See Saw,” from 1970, performed adroitly by Sarah Swenson and Carmela Hermann Dietrich.

Members of the Rudy Perez Ensemble were in full command of their craft celebrating what would have been their founder’s 95th birthday (Perez died last year at 93), in a program of group pieces, duets and solos from rarely seen works. Excerpts, including “Dance Crazy Kid From New Jersey Meets Hofmannsthall” (1992) and “Topload/Offprint” (1967), remained as relevant now as in years past. Bringing these works to life again were Anne and Jeff Grimaldo, Jarred Cairns, Alessia Patregnani, Swenson, Mona Jean Cedar, and Isabel Van Zijl, embodying the dictum that dance is handed down from body to body.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who founded Urban Bush Women in 1984, delivered the whole package in her final work for the troupe, “Scat!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” when UBW took to the stage at the Mark Taper Forum, the first ever dance presentation at that venue. The 90-minute intermissionless opus was breathtaking in scope and served as her swan song for the women-centered troupe dedicated to telling stories of the African diaspora through traditional and modern Africanist dance forms.

Zollar’s über-personal work, which at its core is a tale of migration, had come to her in a dream, with the mining of her family’s history proving potent. Featuring Craig Harris’ original score performed live, the work not only featured her eight glorious dancers, but Zollar performing, as well. The high-octane, semi-improvisational choreography—set in a fictional Kansas City jazz club—rocked the Taper with unisons, one-legged turns and running-in-place motifs. This was art of the highest order.

Urban Bush Women in Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's “Scat!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar.” Photograph by Maria Baranova

It’s rare that a “Nutcracker” should be a standout work in any year, but American Contemporary Ballet’s “Nutcracker Suite,” choreographed and directed by Lincoln Jones and recently seen at the troupe’s downtown studio, is that exception. Pared down to 70 minutes and dubbed “immersive,” the ballet featured a bevy of gorgeous gals, two stellar male dancers, including the divine cavalier, Maté Szentes, along with plenty of complimentary champagne, popcorn, ice cream, candy—and fake snow! 

In this year of numerous original creations, special shout-outs also go to: Congress X, the dance salon that serves as a platform for cross-genre movement artists co-founded by Denna Thomsen and Zak Ryan Schlegel, which rocked the LADP space with a potpourri of exceptional dancers and choreographies; and Millepied’s “Me. You. We They,” for the very gifted dancers of his LADP. 

And speaking of LADP, the company returned to Vibiana for its annual gala, which was presented by Van Cleef & Arpels, and featured an hour’s worth of wonderful dancing, including a special excerpt from “Resonance,” a gorgeous trio by choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber. On the other side of town, American Ballet Theatre threw its grand bash at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, with some of its dancers taking star turns: Cassandra Trenary and Herman Cornejo brilliantly performed a passage from Twyla Tharp’s “Sinatra Suite,” and Brady Farrar danced his own sensational solo to Rimsky-Korsakov’s electrifying, “Flight of the Bumblebee.”   

And finally, kudos to filmmakers Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbühl, whose magnificent documentary, “Obsessed with Light,” explores the life and work of groundbreaking artist, dancer and theatrical maverick Loïe Fuller—she created the Serpentine Dance—and who also revolutionized the visual culture of the early twentieth century.

So, while we bid adieu to 2024, and though we may feel uneasy about the political state of the world, we can rest assured that dance, in all of its glories, is alive and well, and is still able to fill our hearts with every possible emotion to help carry the day. 

Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCET’s Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleaf’s novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggy’s Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through X, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.

comments

Shea New

Wonderfully well written article and retrospective of the best of the west in LA dance. Thank you!

Linda Yudin

Hello Victoria, So glad to know that you are writing about our vibrant dance scene.
Happy New Year!

Merilyn Jackson

Terrific roundup of LA dance over the last year. Sorry I’ve been on the other side of the abyss between us and missed so much. Happy new dance year.

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