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Fall Fashion

Was it Benjamin Franklin, that sagacious and witty man, who, on signing the Declaration of Independence that hot July day in 1776, admonished his colleagues that they had better hang together lest they all hang separately? Equally intransigent and rebellious, the American dancers who were their descendants appeared to be moved by this same Franklin-ian impulse toward solidarity and union, even as they declared their independence from the traditions of Europe.“ –José Limón, from An Unfinished Memoir

Performance

New Chamber Ballet “Twine” by Miro Magloire / Trajal Harrell’s “Monkey off My Back or The Cat’s Meow” / Coco Villa’s “I Am Swimming with Zaza”

Place

Mark Morris Dance Group / Park Avenue Armory / Black Aesthetics at Judson Memorial Church, New York, NY, September 2025

Words

Candice Thompson

New Chamber Ballet in “Twine” by Miro Magloire. Photograph by Steven Pisano

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Limón wrote that reflection about Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Helen Tamiris, and Agnes de Mille banding together to form the Dance Repertory Theater in 1931. The group presented two shared seasons during the Great Depression. Yet nearly a century past Limón’s reference, in early September 2025, I found some of those same themes permeating work across multiple venues in New York City. From Coco Villa’s “I Am Swimming With Zaza,” at Black Aesthetics at Judson Memorial Church to Trajal Harrell’s “Monkey Off My Back or The Cat’s Meow,” at Park Avenue Armory to Miro Magloire’s “Twine,” at Mark Morris Dance Group in Brooklyn, choreographic scores found imaginative connections and deep support between dancers in scenes of chaotic and dissonant self-actualization. And fitting for the timing of New York Fashion Week, the costumes for these productions weren’t too shabby either.

In Magloire’s latest work, “Twine,” strange reverberations echo out from the piano as two pairs of women bend their bodies backward over one another. A fifth woman balances on the side of her head and shoulder, her neck bent at an extreme angle, pointe shoes in the air. Pianist Sophiko Simsive continues to play the notes of Tonia Ko’s unsettling music with her head and shoulders inside the instrument while the dancers rise into back walkovers and take turns meditating in various head and arm stands. Sarah Thea’s wispy tunics and pants present a moving ombre of berry tones that is a cooling salve to the sharper points in the music. Doori Na’s violin evokes a horror film, and the unease accompanies a virtuosic chin stand. 

New Chamber Ballet in “Twine” by Miro Magloire. Photograph by Steven Pisano

Three women form a triangle, seated into one another on the floor; their bodies swirling together and inching forward like a many-headed creature. The five dancers revolve in and out of kaleidoscopic patterns while Na and Simsive make the most of Ko’s very physical score. Throughout, they steal my attention away from the dance. But that is okay because Magloire crafts his ballets with a steady hand and repetitions of phrases and partnering sequences continually draw you back in. Sometimes a dramatic sound reminds me to check in with the dancers; other times the patterns of the dancers point my eye out peripherally to the musicians. 

Once standing, the women’s partnering is more ambitious. Now it becomes clear to me that the center of their stage is really an arena, or a ring—a place to grapple with a challenge, whether it be an inversion or an overhead lift. They attend to one another with total commitment and calm attention which creates a stark contrast to the knocking of the piano and the stabbing of the violin. Their weight sharing and strength is impressive, particularly given that the person providing most of the support is wearing pointe shoes. And though one sequence ends in a Bluebird-style lift, much of the work happens at an adagio pace and seems to follow the principles of acro-yoga more than classical ballet partnering. 

For Magloire and his fiercely independent New Chamber Ballet, presenting intimate concert dance with live chamber music for 21 seasons, the “Franklin-ian impulse” has meant divorcing the neoclassical ballet form from its ubiquitous male-female partnering; moving away from uprightness to explore the possibilities of the floor; and shifting the audience’s perspective from the flat front of the proscenium to a diamond-shaped stage where movement and sound emanate out from the center to the seating on all sides. 

Nasheeka Nedsreal in Trajal Harrell’s “Monkey off My Back or The Cat’s Meow” at Park Avenue Armory. Photograph by Stephanie Berger

Back in Manhattan, Harrell’s “Monkey Off My Back,” transformed the Armory’s massive, flexible space into an epic catwalk on a Piet Mondrian-inspired floor. The dancers walked and walked, dressed in everything from bathrobes to backless gowns. Mixing kitsch and gravitas, some stumbled and staggered while others strode down the runway with confidence, carrying bags with messages like “Beauty is in the eye,” and “After this, tacos.” 

In its most captivating section, the relentless parade accumulates into a storm with America’s central document in its eye. Pyjamas and overcoats give way to colonial-style garments. Copies of The Declaration pass down the rows of the audience while an artist reads it. All the while, the dancers walk. Some hold up pieces of clothing in front of their bodies as if in anticipation of the people they might become. The clean lines of the runway begin to look more like the grid on the floor as dancers cross each other more rapidly and the music blares, meeting the growing demands of the founding fathers. A large fan blows the papers all over as another artist tries to finish reading it. 

Hair flying, skirts swishing, the elegant walks morph into a militaristic march before devolving into a dance club. The cast regroups to face each other and a folk-dance step exits them one by one, until only two artists are left, spinning like children.  

The final hour of the performance felt like a slow deflation after such an intense climax. More looks were proffered and individual solos carried on in the middle of fashion both fierce and absurd, including the notable face melting spiral of Stephen Thompson and Frances Chiaverini’s understated soul searching. But ultimately, there were not enough details to sustain one’s attention for two hours without an intermission. After all, most fashion shows are no longer than twenty minutes.

Coco Villa’s “I Am Swimming with Zaza.” Photograph by Toni Esposito

Clothing was also central to Coco Villa’s “I Am Swimming with Zaza,” at the first fall performance of Black Aesthetics, curated by Malcolm-x Betts and Arien Wilkerson. The work begins and ends with Villa alone and seems to track a journey of self-actualization. In silence, facing upstage, they groove and contemplate a dress on a hanger. They put it on, add a blindfold, and those actions summon an ensemble of dancers in black. In ruffles, fringe, gloves, and sheer fabrics the six dancers fan out on a checkered floor. The sounds of Spanish guitar music are punctuated with stomps, or what sounds like the dropping of blocks, and performative breathing that hisses. Villa and another dancer in a matching dress melt through a duet of gestures where a hook that pulls on their cheeks becomes a gun, then a microphone, and finally a cigarette for stomping out. The ritualistic section concludes with the sentiment, “Whatever I repress, manifests,” sounding out across an empty, dark stage.

When the dancers return, the vibe is physical education. Scarves reminiscent of flag football float up in the air as a sandbag drags and some kind of tug of war finds a rope entangling a pair of dancers. They appear absorbed in parallel play until a strobe draws them into a vibrating mass. When a voice over intones: “Whatsoever I can conceive of in my mind, so it shall be,” the sentiment smacks of the great American experiment, or at least the better angels of it. 

Villa’s work is rooted in Colombian-Caribbean spirit traditions and explores, in their own words, “the thin membrane between the real and the fantastical.” The final section, in which the cast is radiant in red, feels like an apotheosis. Hands upturned, they shift their hips and pop their ribcages with precision to a drum. A unison phrase repeats as each dancer walks with personal style to exit through the audience. We are left with Villa, rippling their torso without missing a beat, untired and undeterred. 

Candice Thompson

Candice Thompson has been working in and around live art for over two decades. She was a dancer with Milwaukee Ballet before moving into costume design, movement education and direction, editing and arts writing. She attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, graduated from St. Mary’s College LEAP Program, and later received an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University. From 2010-2021 she was editorial director of DIYdancer, a project-based media company she co-founded. Her writing on dance can be found in publications like Andscape, ALL ARTS, ArtsATL, The Brooklyn Rail, Dance Magazine, and the New York Times.  

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