Ron Brown's Work is Evidence of Brilliance

EVIDENCE-A Dance Company
The Joyce Theater
February 12, 2009


Ron Brown's Program B is a brilliance sandwich. All three parts are made up of the stuff of brilliance, but the real meat of it is in the middle (appropriately so). That meat is called Walking Out the Dark I, and it is the kind that is fully seasoned and tenderized. The surrounding pieces (the bread) are not nearly as excitingly seasoned, but a necessary and essential part of a Ron Brown balanced meal.

Opening the show, Ebony Magazine asks the onlooker, "Do you see what I see?" in the midst of beautiful patterns and movement exploding on the stage, kaleidoscopic at times. The black and white garb including long, black satin gloves, cocktail dresses and suits for the men scream elegance.

After this explosion of elegance, the four men of the company dance and breath as one to a poem, which includes lines such as "Your god does not have long, blonde hair"..."Come down my brother...don't walk around like you are on tv...". They dance to the tempo of each others breath, which they listen hard to as they go from slow ronde de jambs with the body undulating down to a "hit the wall" abrupt stance with bodies as rigid as stone.

When Arcell Cabuag (who is also the associate artistic director) enters the stage in long, flowing white material to the sound of seagulls, a climax is reached. Arcell takes flight as he dances with an ethereal quality. He dances the dance of a ghost and a bird in the way he floats in his attitude pitch falls and into the ground African praises. He foreshadows his own death with his ghostliness. This solo ends in his death as he lays peacefully on his back downstage as his friends walk up to him, acknowledge that he has passed on and exit the stage without grievance.

The dancers return to the stage to dance the beauty and joy that is oozing out of the words "Do you see what I see". These words are spoken over and over again live by the spoken word artist, Wunmi. Sometimes the simplest moments in life are so beautiful to one person, but remain unnoticed by another. The dancers simply walk across the stage in brightly colored outfits before letting the joy of the music make them groove with African steps and jumps, which is contagious as they force the others to see the beauty that they see and that they feel-that we see and that we feel.



The second piece, A Walk in the Dark I, is the meat of the briliance this evening. A mother and a daughter and a father and a son stand diagonally across from one another at all four corners of the stage. As they bare their souls to each other in bare, flesh colored outfits, the eternal "bickering" of a parent and child comes alive. The first section in this piece portrays the daughter and the son throwing horrible temper tantrums as they angrily thrust their ribcage and pelvis, flail their bodies through the air and slam on the ground face first. In the second section, the mother and the father retaliate with the ever so ominous guilt trip. This is poignantly portrayed by the mother as she grand pleás in second while scooping up the hurt heart and the pool of tears off of the ground to present to the child.

There is no relation between this mother and father, and, in fact, they don't exist to each other. The same goes for the children. These are two separate families who happen to be going through turbulence at the same time on the same planet (or, on the same stage). The fact that they never see each other is astonishing as they execute complex patterns. The two pairs intertwine between one another as they fight with their respective parent without even a glance in the direction of the other dueling pair as they come within a hair's breadth. At one point, the daughter figure-eights around the father while she continues her argument with her mom, and the father focuses his angst on his son.

The absolute climax of this piece is the period when all four dancers exist in their own heads for a moment as they dance angry solos. The flailing and abrupt movement that has been prevalent throughout the piece is used in each of their solos. This is the first time in the piece when all of them are directing their angst inward and not relating to the parent or child. Immediately following this, all of them lie down on the ground in a straight horizontal line (after the mother is the last one standing as she has the last word). Dirt falls in the same straight horizontal line that the families are lying in from the catwalk. The dirt falls four times. They are now buried in the ground. We have an everlasting struggle with our parents that starts at the beginning and ends at the end.



The last piece of the evening, Exotica, shows not only a wide range of style (from stunning classic technique to dirty stank), but also a range of music and atmosphere. Exotica takes us straight from the night club where everyone is shaking their booty to pumping bass to the church scene where people bow their head in prayer as His Eye is on the Sparrow plays.

Throughout the nightclub scenes and church scenes (they continue to interchange and the music quite often overlaps), their movement evokes praise not only toward the sky praising the Lord but also inward praising oneself and down to the ground praising elders. There is one movement that becomes a motif, quickly praising those three things by placing the hand to the ground, to one's heart and then toward the sky as they simply walk across the stage.

The message that this sends is clear: whether in church, at a club or at home, you can make any place a church by praising life. The costumes add to the celebration with various shades of brightly colored velvet dresses and pant suits on the men and women. My personal favorite part of this celebration aside from the beautiful praise is how "in the pocket" all of the dancers are. At one point, all of the dancers are in two lines, and they pause for a moment before grooving-a groove that almost appears to be internal as they get deeper and deeper in the pocket.


Ron Brown and his dancers continue to bring us unique contemporary dance that is deep seated in African movement. The work takes an honest look at life and death with a readiness at all moments to celebrate all ups and downs. Ron Brown's choreography and the dancers' passion work together to permanently brand the concept of each piece on each person walking away from the theater.





iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Adrienne Jean Fisher
Performance: Ronald K. Brown's Evidence
Venue: Joyce Theatre
Date: February 12, 2009
www.iDANZOnline.com

Past/Forward: A Tisch Dance Alumni Celebration

As Cherylyn Lavagnino, the chairperson of the NYU Dance Department, introduces the evening's program, she explains how much of an honor it is to have these dancers/choreographers back at the university to display their work. She explains to the audience that this is a celebration of accomplished alumni that the entire department is looking to make an annual event. I don't realize until the close of the program how much I, too, am going to hope for this to be an annual event celebrating seven choreographers, all of whom have a unique voice.



Brook Notary is an absolute star. Her work opens the first act, and it opens with a bang! Grid, a piece choreographed in 2008, uses four bungee-type ropes as dancing props. I say "dancing props" because the ropes dance as they partner with the company and, seemingly, have a life of their own when they are touched by the dancers. Each rope is tethered on both ends off stage right and off stage left in the wings.

The dancers not only travel from right to left in the paths that the ropes create, but also, jump over them like hurdles and press themselves against the ropes as if the rope is a slingshot. The tension is high from the moment the music begins with its digital pulsations and a distant broken record sound composed by John Elliott Oyzon. The dancers begin by simply walking with intention, through the "high tension" wires. Then, they start to tangle themselves in and out of the ropes as they dance. (The initial tangling makes me think of Chinese Jump rope, and how this piece must have been inspired by that!)

One of the male dancers effortlessly repeats circular attitude pitch turns as if gravity isn't affecting him one bit. As he does the pitch, he steps over the rope after pulling it down with his hand just enough so that he can step over it. When the corps of dancers comes out on stage to play with the ropes together, I can see the heads turning sharply to the right before pulling a rope over a head or under a knee. These head isolations are not only interesting visually to the choreography, but very functional. Without these quick looks to the side, the dancers would become tangled to death. The synchronicity is unbelievable! (This piece had to have taken hours of meticulous rehearsal.) As a girl pulls the rope under her chin and twice over her arms (all the while executing choreography with her hands and feet), she is also unravelling the girl next to her, who is about to run into a man's arms who has just hurdled over two ropes to catch her in time.

I do not breath until the end at which point four dancers continually run down stage from the most upstage point behind all four ropes bending the ropes toward the audience like wrestlers using the ropes for resistance and power as the lights fade out.



Johannes Wieland's Shift brings us into the unrestrained and slightly alive photo book of a male and female. I say "unrestrained" because when they move, there is only an ounce of tension in either of their bodies, the tension being their pointed feet. They both have fantastic feet that just barely stick out of their black slacks with matching long sleeved black shirts. Otherwise, all of the movement is breezy and relaxed as it visibly starts at a certain point in the body and travels all the way out through the head and the finger tips.

This piece is a photo book of times together and times apart. When there is a meaningful "together" moment, they freeze. When there is a meaningful apart moment (both lying on their backs at opposite ends of the stage), they freeze. When they are together, their bodies intertwine seamlessly as the unrestrained energy that they have been practicing within their own bodies shoots unrestricted from one body to the other and rebounds again and again. This is organic movement at its finest. Two dancers of different sexes and drastically different sizes move as if they share the same internal biology. Johannes Wieland is a master at puppeteering as she gets inside the dancers' bodies to pull the strings so that all of the effort and tension is inside resting with the master controller letting no one on the outside see any tension or strings being pulled.



Seán Curran outdoes himself in a solo that he not only has choreographed but also performs ingeniously. St. Petersburg Waltz was created to celebrate Meredith Monk's 40th anniversary and appropriately, is set to St. Petersburg Waltz from Volcano Songs composed by Meredith Monk. This masterpiece takes you on an emotional journey through a man's life starting at a point of naive, gleeful happiness and ending at point of repentance as the lights fade out on him desperately praying for forgiveness.

The lights come up on Seán clad in britches, a tight fitting vest with a pocket watch chain visible and a bowler hat tightly fitted to his head. The beard, his rosy cheeks, his slightly rotund figure and the aforementioned garb create the look of a jolly Russian business man at the turn of the 19th century. The piece begins as he step-touches from side to side in time with the two piano chords that are struck every measure of music. His arms are raised over his head as he claps on every step touch, all the while displaying glee and contentment on his face. He basks in happiness for a short time, during which time he simply claps his hands and twiddles his feet in quick petit allegro patterns (I adore this integration of classical ballet into such an off the wall contemporary piece).

But something tragic in his life happens that puts him through emotions ranging from anxiety and guilt to regret and bitterness. All of these emotions are clearly expressed and almost over-exaggerated in a clown-like way (Seán is very talented at pantomime) including the suicidal phase in which he actually pantomimes a noose being made as he tries to kill himself. He goes back and searches for simplicity again through the "step touch clap your hands over your head dance", but can no longer find pleasure in the things he once found so beautiful.

Seán Curran breaks the fourth wall with one hundred percent commitment as he acts like a clown or a magician in the way he presents his emotions to the audience. At one point, he stands all the way downstage center at the edge of the stage and covers his eyes with his hands as his mouth opens and closes as if he is a fish out of water. It is almost as if the audience is the person that is provoking all of these emotions, and it is the audience whom he asks for forgiveness at the end. A great artist sees something in a beautiful and unique way and then goes on to make it take shape for others to see and consequently, be affected by it. Seán Curran has seen and executed something unique and beautiful that would have made Meredith Monk proud.



Cherylyn Lavagnino's Facets adds a new flavor to this evening's program with a three movement ballet production to Legions, Fern and We Insist by composer Zoe Keating. The lights come up on four quivering female dancers facing upstage in b-plus. Their bodies undulate up and down as there pointe shoe clad feet continue to quiver yet stay attached firmly to the ground. This opening is beautiful and mysterious and seems to be laying the groundwork for a beautiful and mysterious piece, but the work becomes more and more about the technique that is being executed and less about conveying a story and/or any type of emotion.

That being said, the technique displayed is unbelievable. The first male soloist (anonymous to me because there are no solo credits in the program) flawlessly does double inside attitude turns into triple outside pirouettes (on the same leg mind you). At one point, after he has finished doing a third set of these without a hop, a member in the audience lets out a loud "whoop", which brings me back to my old competition days when the audience went crazy every time there was a trick knocked out such as five pirouettes into a couter slam. Another technical element that is fantastic is the partnering with Selina Chau. She does a développé hitch kick followed by her partner whipping her back in the direction from whence she came with her knees tucked under her as if she were a yo yo on a string.

There is no relationship between the dancers besides the physical contact that must happen during the partnering. Cherylyn Lavagnino's choreography is complexly interesting and the dancers are stunning technicians. Next time, I am hoping for a little more "oomph" from the dancers.



Sydney Skybetter presents Potemkin Piece, an interesting quartet of two males and two females dancing to Dvorak's String Quarter No 12 in F Major op 96. Sydney also performs in this piece and shows off her contact skills (I am guessing that many of these movements began as contact improvisation).

A male and female dance. A male and male dance. A female and female dance. They wear clothes that make them androgynous and one of the girls has a short, boyish haircut so, at first glance, it is hard to tell whether it is a male and female dancing or two males. All of the movements are soft and on the feminine side style wise, a style that is not adjusted for the boys. It is as if they are all of the same sex, and they dance with each other with no sexual tension whatsoever. This "lack of tension" is a style that permeates the entire piece. The "dive attitude step" is a staple here, and it is flawlessly executed as a hand shoots across the body and straight down to the floor as a parallel back attitude is sustained.

Sydney Skybetter's movements are so organic it is as if deep breaths rebounding up and down the dancers' bodies are the driving force for each movement. Skybetter's work is a long, satisfying deep breath.



It's All About Falling is choreographed and performed by Charlotte Boye-Christensen. Christensen is a master craftsman at creating a voyeuristic situation in her choreography. It is as if she is alone in her bedroom casually pacing the floors with a thought, and when she feels like it, she dances with forceful ease (an oxymoron, I know, but the whole piece it driven by this "forceful ease").

After casually taking two steps, sauté arabesques to the ground, rolls over and comes back up again. This has no real preparation and when it is finished, her stillness makes us think that it never happened. Her hair is unkempt, and her loose long sleeved white shirt with long brown pants makes her look as though she is in her pajamas in her bedroom.

Not only is she the anti-thesis of presentational by not acknowledging the audience or anything else external, but she also does not acknowledge herself in that she does not emotionally involve herself in any of her movements. Also, she involves herself as least physically as possible in her movements in the way that her muscles don't seem to be the driving force, but there is a chi that controls her every movement. The choice to be so disengaged coupled with the voyeurism attributed to being "alone in the bedroom with your thoughts" creates a fascinating work.



Number 6 choreographed by Kyle Abraham, in collaboration with the dancers, is a dance of the cats. These cats are not just any cats. Have you ever had a pet kitty, and all of a sudden, it starts meowing in a new voice and jumping on walls as if gravity does not exist? That's right folks, what we have here is a cat in heat-meow!

At first, the audience does not know that this piece is exploring a female feline world until one dancer enters the stage and begins to clean her "whiskers" with her "paws". Now, there are no whiskers, paws, tails, cat-ears or any other costume hints that would tell us that what we are dealing with here are cats. After the first "whisker cleaning" the kitty implications are exponential! They all begin cleaning whiskers, but in an increasingly ferocious and non-"we are just kitties lounging around cleaning our whiskers" type of way. They are letting out their pheromones by the gallons and marking their territories like mad cats!

This pheromonal impetus works like a charm (or catnip) in making the kitties double turn into jetés and show each other their athletic prowess. The real "a-ha" moment is when the choreography begins to intertwine splayed hands on crotches. The first instance is when one feline, as she faces upstage, bends over, puts her hand between her legs and ever so un-subtly tells us that she is in heat. Antics ensue. (A feline pounces on her competition, a feline dance-off takes place, and more whiskers are cleaned). Kyle Abraham displays his unique perspective on the driving forces of movement and integrating humor into a dance story. Well done.



As Cherylyn Lavagnino stated in her opening speech, lets make this alumni show an annual event! It is wonderful to see several different choreographers come back to their roots and showcase their talents, all whose voices have become resonant in different ways, yet holding the common thread of an education.

Elisa Monte and Her Dancers Create Stellar Work

Born in 1981, Elisa Monte Dance has a history of thought provoking work executed by technically and emotionally outstanding dancers, a reputation that is not left at the door on this evening's showcase of four works, one of which is a world premiere.


Slope of Enlightenment is an introduction that not only emphasizes the Elisa Monte dancers' athletically elegant stage presence, but also Elisa's dedication to loyalty and persistence. First off, this piece is dedicated to Fabrice Lamego, a former, loyal Elisa Monte dancer. Elisa's choreography explores human persistence and what it takes to survive in a really tough situation. One male dancer clearly struggles with unexpected obstacles as he faces away from the group after colliding with them in a dramatic confrontation. He dances with internal pain written on every move, but bounces back very quickly to be a stronger person.

The "obstacles" are fiercely represented by the corps. All of the females are in long, drab gray dresses, and, at one point, surround the anguished man as they spin and writhe in canon. This circular climax clearly displays the feeling of being suffocated and surrounded, and the only way out is to simply keep moving.

The way that Elisa makes interesting chaos turn into a clear pattern is genius. This signature "chaos into pattern" is done really well in the circle around the anguished man. The dancers quickly twist, turn and fall to the ground at different times. At first, you don't know who to watch on stage because there is so much happening in different places, but then, after looking at it for a few seconds, you see a subtle pattern. After about sixteen counts of eight of interesting chaos, everyone dramatically ends in the same position on the floor. Slope of Enlightenment is a beautiful manifestation of Elisa Monte's signature "chaos into pattern", which is set on dancers at their peak of emotional and physical agility.


World Premiering this evening is Arrow's Path, a love quintet. All of the movement in this piece shouts physical love and the ups and downs that come along with it. The choice of creating this dance for five dancers is an interesting one. There is always an odd man/woman out. This makes it very similar to a love triangle dance except there are two more dancers to contribute to the trading of partners and interchanging duets of love.

Love makes you go around and around in circles until your head is spinning. Appropriately, Elisa uses a lot of circular motion in each of the duets. The first duet begins with the male and female dancer, back to back, shené turning around each other while never losing physical contact whether it be a head to a small of the back or an elbow to a ribcage. While they spin back to back, both heads are turned slightly toward each other as if making eye contact is the main goal of performing "connected shené turns", but this goal is never accomplished.

Highlighted here is Elisa's collaborative force with the dancers. Every duet that is presented looks as if it starts with contact improvisation between the two dancers. Elisa Monte is a master of contact improvisation and has spread her teachings around the globe, which would make one believe that there is a portion of contact improvisation in all of her art. Seemingly, upon the initial framework by the dancers, Elisa's choreography colors in the vast space in between the lines that makes a duet take form. Now, this is speculation because there is nothing in the program that states there is choreography by any of the dancers (except in the New York premiere of Zydeco, Zaré, (which closes the evening), but the duets are so extremely organic and form fitting in the way that the dancers partner and touch that Elisa would have to know each dancer inside and out to actually specifically choreograph each of those moves (especially exactly what part of the head touches which millimeter of the shoulder on which count in the music to make it all come together seamlessly). If there is not any collaboration with the dancers on this one, then it is a huge compliment to Elisa in the way that she is all knowing of her dancers' bodies, styles and breaths. If there is collaboration, it is still a huge compliment to Elisa because of her brilliant shading that makes the dance come alive with the synchronization of the love making movements and the brilliant vocabulary that makes up the dance that grows from these connections of the flesh.

One of the most romantic and breathtaking sequences is when all five dancers are on stage making a grand display of Elisa's "chaos into pattern". All of the dancers chaotically solo on different counts and with different moves, but the pattern comes into place through the hugs that at least one couple ends in at various spots on the stage every few seconds. It is a beautiful painting of random technical execution spread across the stage interrupted by moments of stillness as each couple that embraces holds the hug for at least an eight count. Some couples go on to slow dance after basking in a much needed still embrace following all of the chaos. Arrow's Path romantically resolves chaos into stillness and tension into release.


Audentity is set to a piece of music by the same name by Klause Schulz that is the driving force of this dance. With the synthesizer sound and the fast beats, the dancers synthesize with a lot of unison choreography and matching all white unitards. A single bright white diagonal line is created with lighting that goes from downstage right to upstage left. The dancers dance on this line as if it is a tight rope, never veering from it at certain points doing small movements with the feet such as step touch in plié while the sharp Horton arms isolate quickly to the 80's beat.

At one point, the dancers move from downstage to upstage on the diagonal line with the same simple, staccato traveling step. Once the most upstage dancer reaches the upstage end of the diagonal line, he/she releases from this staccato traveling step and softly, yet expressively undulates the body with arms in second into a grand plié followed by an attitude leap off stage as another dancer enters onto the downstage part of the diagonal with the same staccato traveling step. This pattern repeats over and over again in increments of eight counts, creating the illusion that there are fifty dancers in the company instead of just the seven dancers who are racing backstage left to right in order to make their next entrance.

A female soloist dances with infinite amounts of energy and technique at various points throughout the piece. The solo is unique in that it combines elements of African style dance and long extensions with the reoccurring fast, rhythmic isolations. This girl has a fierce ponché that she sustains in contrast to the whacking of some of the African and staccato themed movement making up the rest of the piece.

This synthesized music created in 1983 and the sharp, angular movement of the dancers is reminiscent of the digital revolution of the early 80's. The fierce athleticism of the dancers is on showcase in this piece as displayed in the sharp movement created for every quick beat in the music. Technically perfecting these fast movements coupled with running backstage to make an entrance on time is something to be admired. Elisa Monte and her dancers have created a dynamic masterpiece with Audentity.



Zydeco, Zaré is in it's New York premiere this season at the Joyce Theatre. I couldn't stop smiling throughout the entirety of this piece mainly because the dancers are truly having so much fun on stage, and this is infectious. There is a live band playing just off of downstage right in the house, whose music is a huge contributing factor to the fun and playful atmosphere. The musicians play Zydeco music, African American Creole folk music from Louisiana in the 1800's. This piece is, in part, supported by the Louisiana Arts Council and focuses deeply on Louisiana's history through movement and images including multimedia projected on an upstage screen that creates a backdrop chock full of Creole history.

The women wear flowery skirts that they use in the choreography to express playfulness as they toss the material side to side as they dance. These skirts also prove to be flirtacious as they hike them up and roll their hips for the men. The men wear jeans (these jeans must have a high percentage of spandex in them because, otherwise, all of them would have split their pants while kicking their faces and side leaping for the heavens).

This piece gives the men in the company a chance to shine in their masculinity and machismo pride. In a trio, the men proudly swagger to the center of the stage, where they give each other high fives and pull up their belt buckles. A chuckle out loud moment is when the boys start to balletically walk across the stage after being so manly. At this point, I expect a more masculine follow-up to the manly introduction, but aside from the "ballet walks", the male-ography makes the men out to be as strapping as can be. In fact, the dancing in the trio looks as if they are cowboys in an Oklahoma ballet.

We take a visit to the marshes of Louisiana when tall grass is projected on the backdrop as three women walk slowly across the stage, hunched over as if predators. Sporadically, one of the women ferociously flails her hands so close to her face that she has to back her head cautiously away. All of the women do the "hand spaz" at some point during their long hunting trip from one side of the stage to the other as they face their inner demons one at a time. Aside from the seriousness of the womens' hunt and the relationship problems, this piece is a fun celebration of the Creole culture through Zydeco music and dancing with joy as the girls be girls and boys be boys.

The Effortless Mastery of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson