Fall for Dance Program 2: three newcomers

Fun fact for Fall for Dance diehards: the three dance companies that appeared in Program 2 of this year’s Festival at New York’s City Center were all making their Fall for Dance debuts.

New York City-based Complexions Contemporary Ballet has been around for 30 years and had the good sense to bring a recent work to the Festival, one that displays the ensemble to great advantage in their glorious contrast of physiques. I reviewed For Crying Out Loud when it premiered last season; at FFD, bathed in the ravishing lighting designed by Michael Korsh, the dancers looked even sleeker, stretchier and more commanding than before. A collection of pallid reinventions of U2 golden oldies by Bono and The Edge functioned as soundtrack. But with few connections between lyrics and movement, the choreography by Dwight Rhoden could have been grafted onto a score by Mozart, Kendrick Lamar or any composer inbetween and made just as much sense. Spellbinding encounters between dancers, particularly those between Joe González and April Watson, made up for a dearth of meaning.

Boston Ballet on the other hand inexplicably fished out an old duet, Ein von Viel, from its back catalog – not old as in ‘classic,’ just old. The piece was fueled by a few choice Goldberg Variations impeccably whipped off by Sienna Tabron at the piano and impeccably if pointlessly danced by Jeffrey Cirio and Yue Shi in white because that seems to be the default colour when dancing to Bach. Just to remind us that this is a ballet company, choreographer Sabrina Matthews threw some random beaten jumps and grands pirouettes into a thicket of tics and tiresome windscreen-wiper arms. A vapid calling card for a company with a distinguished 60+ year history.

kNoname Artist, a project-based company established in 2015 in Berlin and since relocated to New York, was the relative youngster in this line-up. Founding choreographer Roderick George, who has danced with the Forsythe Company among others, brought his latest work, Venom, which premiered in January at Gibney Dance in New York. It is a moving, elegant and imaginative meditation on the aftermath of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in which seven men alternately dance their loneliness and their trust in community in the shards of light from a shimmery black disco ball. The formidable lighting design is by Beaudau Banks. What looks like dark confetti rains down softly on the stage; like charcoal-coloured snow it mutes the sound of the men’s footfalls and of their bodies falling, tumbling. Some of it sticks to their tees and shorts. 

The choreography comes at us mostly in seamless, long-spanned phrasing, bodies twisting and folding, limbs moving as if through a snow bank, then suddenly flickering or launching the body into a silent spin, sometimes crouched, with no visible preparation. Anguish and determination are communicated in powerful sweeping lines. 

Piercing the moody, crackling soundscape by slowdanger are muffled recordings of iconic anthems of the 70’s including Diana Ross’ Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Patti Labelle’s Lady Marmalade and Donna Summer’s If There is Music There. Barely audible too are fragments of conversation that trace a through-line from the early dehumanisation of AIDS patients to the increase in ignorant, hate-filled rhetoric on race and systematic efforts to strip LGBTQIA+ of their human rights. A fusion of sound, lighting and dance superbly crafted, uncomfortable and true.