Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Dance Roundup: TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY returns to The Joyce and CITY BALLET commences its hefty spring season

• By drediman
• April 30, 2025
• No Comments

The spring dance season is currently in full swing, as indicated by a pair of dance performances I attended across the city this past week. As per usual, read on for my thoughts.

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY
The Joyce Theater
Through May 4

Last night, Trisha Brown Dance Company (RECOMMENDED) returned to The Joyce Theater with two established classics from company’s repertoire and a world premiere work. The program opened with the latter. Lee Serle’s Time Again is a choreographic meditation on the texture of time and its ability to shape realities — albeit glacially — as if a physical force. Featuring a chirping-filled score by Alisdair Macindoe and simple yet striking designs of visual artist Mateo López (which gave the impression of birdhouses, perhaps?), the piece drew me in with is calm, steady cadence and prismatic unfolding — all the while pointing to Brown’s aesthetic influence. Then came two older Brown works, starting with Opal Loop/Cloud Installation #72503. Created in 1980 sans music (but with ample stage fog), the piece — performed smoothly by a quartet of dancers — clearly demonstrates the rigor behind Brown’s choreography, which combines loose-limbed movements with ingenious sense of structure. It’s an enduring classic that continues to stimulate viewers. Choreographed just a year later, Son of Gone Fishin’ continues Brown’s study of abstract bodies in motion, albeit on a much more elaborate scale. Set to bouncy orchestral selections from “Atalanta (Acts of God)” by renegade opera composer Robert Ashley, the complex and fluid piece is in a constant state of assemblage and re-assemblage. It’s mesmerizing and dizzying to watch — particularly with the color scheming of the costumes and lighting — and a rousing conclusion to the program. Together, these two intellectually curious early works by Brown indicate why she’s widely considered a trailblazer of dance.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
David H. Koch Theater
Spring season continues through June 1

Last week at the David H. Koch Theater, New York City Ballet launched into its hefty spring season with a spectacular all-Balanchine bill (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). The evening commenced with  Chun Wai Chan, Mira Nadon, Miriam Miller, and Emily Kikta in Apollo. By Friday night’s performance, it seemed that this accomplished set had settled nicely into their roles, with Chan giving a terrific performance in the title role that married youthful exuberance with profound introspection. Of the women, Nadon as Terpsichore shined particularly brightly — when does she not? — with her expansive yet approachable performance style and superb musicality. Then came the sensational pairing of veteran principal Megan Fairchild and up-and-comer David Gabriel in Ballo della Regina (guest conductor Nicolette Fraillon’s “See the Music” lecture that preceded it went on for far too long). The ballet is an ideal vehicle for Fairchild, her quick-silver reflexes sending the beloved ballerina darting across the stage as if a skipping stone. It’s a particular pleasure to see younger talent start reaching for greatness, and that’s precisely what Gabriel did in his crisp yet supremely expressive performance. And is there anything more dazzling in classical ballet today than witnessing Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia shred the floor in Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux? Many would argue not. At the performance I attended, Mejia’s sweeping and majestic dancing was breathtaking to watch, and it actually adjusted Peck’s timing and choreographic phrasing, giving her musicality more of a subdued — but no less exciting — quality to match his more traditional sense of classicism. The evening concluded with a stately if a somewhat anticlimactic performance of Chaconne led by Sara Mearns and Tyler Angle.