This is a draft of a review of the concert I saw on Friday, April 19, 2013.
The choreographers were “mature” 10 years ago, but on the 10th anniversary of “I’ll Have What She’s Having,” this program has come of age. Each had something to say, and some dances were memorable.
Claire Porter has spent a lifetime wittily syncing words and ideas with movement. In Frame, to a score by Guy Klucevsek, four dancers (Marie Alonso-Snyder, Christine Colosimo, Linda Mannheim, and – on Friday – Debra Keller) take picture frames to peer through, truck around, pile up, eventally making clear how valuable new and different perspectives can be. “So many ways to look at things.” It was subtle, deft, a winner on many levels.
The other new group dance, Pink Ribbons, by Fara Lindsay, to music by Flack, had blunt impact on an emotional level. Five women in a waiting room are summoned, one by one, behind a lit screen for the ritual. First the mammogram. One by one, the suction biopsy needle goes down the line. All this you see in shadow. One by one the cleaver goes down the line. The women emerge clutching their pink robes, their heads covered with scarves. They are broken. One falls, is helped up. Two reach out to help a third. Each gathers strength from the next. Part B is a poignant solo by Lindsay, followed by the re-entry of all the patients, recovered and swinging their way back into the world. The cast of 11 included Christine Colosimo, Louise Bolge, Erickson, Meiying Huang, Keller, Linda Mannheim, Eri Millrod, Nancy Musco, Shari Nyce, and Marie Alonso Snyder. It should be a fundraiser for the Y’s pink ribbon benefit.
Mannheim spent most of Porter’s piece locomoting on the floor so it was a revelation to see her long-limbed Graham-and-Pilates trained body stretch out in joyfully beautiful ways – on a pole, no less. With her yearning extensions, in Axis Mundi (to the music of Ennio Morricone) she took pole dancing to a new level. I imagined it to be her love song to life.
In A Pas de Deux Linda Erickson simply walked and walked some more, never stopping, while her partner efficiently tricked her out in the frippery of cheap feminity – bosoms, butts, wig and all. All this to Bobby McFerrin singing Psalm 23, the version that makes God a she.
In the trio Sylvie, with Milrod and Lindsay, Nyce revealed an enriched emotional palette, moving from serenity (“Bring me little water Sylvie” to a chain gang chant. Nyce repurposed her signature limber lifts to the stark impact of struggle. Nyce’s co-choreographers were Terri Best and Deborah Brokus.
A duet by Dawn Berman and Susan Brady Pinto had similar intensity without the emotional focus.
I’ve seen Colosimo do some inventive pieces using props, but here she went for savvy showbiz with a deft tap dance. She’s a showman in the best sense of the word.
Also on the program: Flamenco artist Lisa Botalico (with Valerie Aguilar, Jan Bhaskar, Sharron Bollen, and Cathy Carr) presented the colorful El Café de la Union, Marie Alonzo danced to poems read by Tatyana Petrovicheva, and three dancers performed to live music (well, almost live, the bagpipes were recorded but the accordion and sax were live). On Saturday, Debra Orenstein will present two Isadora Duncan works.
The program repeats Saturday, April 20, at 7:30 p.m. The community room at the Princeton YWCA has effectively been turned into a black box theater for the occasion.
Alonzo adds this explanatory note, which I’m glad to include:
Marie Alonzo’s work “50 shades of fifty” part 2 was accompanied by poems written and read by Tatyana Petrovicheva. “Because of time limitations for solos ( 10 minutes) I could not perform the full solo of 42 minutes (part 1,2,3,4). The complete conceptual work of asking 50 dancers for 50 seconds of movement and stringing them in the order they were received, will be performed at an evening of my choreography and dance on June 22nd at the West Windsor Arts Council.”
Alonzo adds this explanatory note, which I’m glad to include:
Marie Alonzo’s work “50 shades of fifty” part 2 was accompanied by poems written and read by Tatyana Petrovicheva. “Because of time limitations for solos ( 10 minutes) I could not perform the full solo of 42 minutes (part 1,2,3,4). The complete conceptual work of asking 50 dancers for 50 seconds of movement and stringing them in the order they were received, will be performed at an evening of my choreography and dance on June 22nd at the West Windsor Arts Council.”
Princeton Comment 