The cool kids swept into New York City Center on strong gusts of wind and a torrential downpour. Nederlands Dans Theater, though, brought no promises of spring warmth nor hopes for gentle breezes. Instead, it alighted with scowls, strident walking, barely-there costumes, electronica, strobe lights, pitch-black cycloramas, and bleak depictions of community. The cool kids will do as cool kids do.
Of course, we were excited by the raft of buzzy choreographers, including William Forsythe, Imre and Marne van Opstal, and Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar. Of course, we were looking forward to the dancing, which was so effortless and intuitive that none of the performers appeared to lift a pinky even when they were actually lifting a pinky (and much more). And, of course, we wanted to check out what trends have been materializing across the pond.
NDT delivered the above, yet the triple-bill program never elevated itself beyond atmosphere and gimmicks. Much of this was due to the samey-same content of the pieces. Each choreographer began with a community, established a theme, and then exhausted variation after variation on that theme. It’s the difference between traveling from here to there versus looping around the same point over and over. Tonight, we circled.
Forsythe opens with N.N.N.N., in which cause and effect spawn a Rube Goldberg machine of cascading actions. The first image is arresting: a dancer in practice clothes undulates his arm like a seahorse riding a wave. Before you know it, three more artists have joined. The quartet clasps hands, setting off a daisy chain of arms cresting and nesting.
Watch all the ways the number four can be divided up. Three against one. Two against one and one. Two against two. All four together.
It’s Forsythe, so lots of interesting movements occur, but they stay within well-trod dynamic territory. Up, down. Move, stop. Touch, release. So on, so forth. Too many times, one dancer rests a hand on another’s head as if they’re a good dog.
Longtime collaborator Thom Willems contributes the music. Yet he’s up against the score the dancers make themselves out of themselves with noisy exhalations, feet skidding across the floor, and thwacks of flesh on flesh. Near the end, I heard an electronic thrum – as in one.
Brother-and-sister Marne and Imre van Opstal (in collaboration with Drift) contribute The Point Being, a dystopian work I’ve never seen, though I felt like I’d seen it before. These are its five major motifs: cushiony pliés, à la seconde attitudes, stalking on and off stage, body ripples, and busted-up, broken-down, baby-doll poses. Solo after solo – some simultaneous, others not – transpire. They’re all danced beautifully, meaningfully. But since they spring from the same well of impulses, one person’s truth reflects the prior person’s truth.
As Amos Ben-Tal/OFF projects’s music – propulsive rhythms, melancholic melodies – lulled me into sedation, I wondered if a piece with such gloomy, front-page-of-the-newspaper imagery could find funding in the U.S.A., where making work requires the generosity of rich folks. Literal bars are placed between the audience and dancers by a window-pane drape constructed of thin ropes. White, rectangular lights cast an eerie glow into the sea of darkness. Try and stop yourself from picturing all the desolate environments evoked: prison camps, burnt-out homes, lonely faces peering out from windows during Covid lockdowns. You can’t.
As artists come and go, rarely interacting, the isolation registers as stifling. Then a pas de deux starts, lissome, sinuous, sexy. A man twirls a woman through his limbs like she’s a strand of spaghetti. Could human connection be the answer? Nope. In the end, the duo untangles themselves, and the woman glides away. Apparently, you can only count on yourself.
Give some snaps to the dancers’ calf muscles because they must be dead by the end of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s Jakie. The company spends the piece on demi-pointe in a forced arch. In contrast to The Point Being, this flock sticks together. Any rebel who breaks the unity is soon subsumed back into the group.
Quotes from Swan Lake abound. One woman flickers her foot as fast as a hummingbird’s heartbeat, Odette in the Act 2 pas de deux. Arranged in a clump, the bevy pas courus and bourrées – small, quick, even steps. They arch their arms over their heads, the pointer finger crooked, the thumb and remaining fingers connected in a circle. Madcap emboîtés surge around a circle or through a diagonal. The shenanigans are underscored by Ori Lichtik’s jangly music box of a composition.
The curtain falls just as one makes a break for freedom. Do they succeed? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, these birds know how to party.
