BWW Reviews: Lar Lubovitch Dance Company Celebrates 45th Anniversary at The Joyce

The 45th anniversary season of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company provided a glimpse into Lar Lubovitch's prolific career as a dance maker, showcasing both well-known and new works. Program B, presented at The Joyce Theater from October 15-20, featured a variety of pieces that emphasized Lubovitch's talent for using several distinctive movement themes to create a wide variety of atmospheres and characters.

Alternately joyful and reflective, Transparent Things introduced the circular group patterns and soaring lifts that would be seen throughout the evening. In this group work, six dancers brought the subjects of Pablo Picasso's "Family of Saltimbanques" to life. Dressed in costumes inspired by Picasso's performers and framed by a cloudy blue projection, the dancers crafted flowing ribbons of movement. The Bryant Park String Quartet joined the cast onstage to play Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10. Spectacularly quiet and fluid, Attila Joey Csiki opened the first movement with a lush, sweeping solo and matched the joy of the second movement's pizzicato with spritely jumping and turning. The group joined Csiki, spiraling around one another to cross the stage. A particularly memorable moment saw the band of dancers coming to rest, interspersed among the quartet as the third movement drew to a serene close.

In Crisis Variations, the intertwined circles and complex weaving patterns that created generous scenes of folding and opening in Transparent Things turned chaotic and grotesque. The swirling group of dancers was more cyclonic, less like a maypole dance. Though still quiet and remarkably efficient, the dancers' movements ended in moments of unsettling distortion, limbs twisted and heads thrown limply backward. Katarzyna Skarpetowska was especially intriguing in several solo sections. Her body was a manifestation of anguish, with chaotic limbs rolling, jumping, and stretching into one odd position after another.

After these two larger works, a section labeled Three Little Dances introduced further variations of Lubovitch's vocabulary, as well as a duet choreographed by Skarpetowska.

As Sleep Befell featured a score by Paola Prestini, performed live by Ransom Wilson's ensemble Le Train Bleu, and vocalist Helga Davis. Arranged in a semi-circle across the back of the stage, the musicians provided both soundscape and physical setting for the cast of white sarong-clad male dancers. The movement slowly built from a series of subtle undulations to a climax of leaps and soaring lifts. As in the pieces before, energy increased as the dancers created fluid circular patterns and expansive gestures.

Listen, choreographed by Skarpetowska, provided a slight departure from Lubovitch's signature circles and assisted leaps. Beginning with repetition of a series of gestures, the duet progressed to include fluid floor work and seamless contact. The real highlight came when Corea leaves the stage to Luplau. After an insistent repetition of the opening gesture phrase, Luplau erupted, quietly, into a solo that changed level and direction with astonishing speed and ease.

The final dance of the evening felt like an attempt to prevent the audience from leaving the theater with the belief that Lubovitch's choreography is exclusively suited for elegant and profound themes. The premiere of the program, Crazy 8's, saw the same circles and arcing lifts as the earlier pieces performed by dancers in unitards printed to look like cowboy clothes. The brightly colored skin-tight costumes were coupled with crude gestures and emphatic hip thrusting, making the dancers seem like cartoonish action figures. Rather than highlighting the flexibility of a choreographic style, placing Crazy 8's at the end of the program made it difficult to ignore the fact that as distinct and satisfying as Lubovitch's movement vocabulary may be, it is not the ideal vehicle for every type of character.

Photo Credit: Bill Herbert (top), Phyllis A. McCabe (end)

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