Review: FALL FOR DANCE FESTIVAL Celebrates Dance's Past and Present

There is something particularly fitting about opening New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival with a piece titled In the Act of Undoing.

As leaves are changing and the world begins to unravel itself into a new season, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham opened the festival with this New York premiere choreographed by Jermaine Spivey. 

Set to repetitive, hypnotic music also composed by Spivey, the work had an almost ritualistic quality. At first, the movement flowed softly without edges, gradually giving way to sharper, more staccato gestures in the second half of the piece. Even when individual dancers were performing different steps, the ensemble retained the sense of moving as one body.

The effect was gorgeous and unsettling. Repetition felt comforting at times and at other times oppressive, as though dancers were caught inside a pattern they could not escape. This was the kind of piece that continues to reverberate even after the lights change.

Program 1 of New York City Center’s 23rd Fall for Dance Festival moved through three contrasting works, yet the evening felt cohesive. Next was Gerald Arpino’s rarely seen pas de deux, L’Air D’Esprit, danced gorgeously by American Ballet Theatre principals Skylar Brandt and Aran Bell. Where Spivey’s piece offered emotional unraveling, Arpino’s offered poise, romance, longing and youthful energy.

Brandt and Bell made the technical demands of classical ballet look easy. A couple of beautiful lifts gave the illusion of defying gravity, and their chemistry was palpable. After the collective tension of In the Act of Undoing, the clarity of classical ballet felt like a restoration. 

Martha Graham Dance Company closed the program with Cortege, choreographed by Baye & Asa and inspired by Graham’s Cortege of Eagles. It began with dancers hidden beneath a black sheet and moving as one ominous mass before slowly emerging. The movement and music echoed the unease of the opening work. Dancers carved lines through the space, combining Graham’s classic pedestrian movement with storytelling and technical strength.

Seeing two of today’s celebrated classical ballet dancers perform an older pas de deux just minutes before led beautifully into this piece from Martha Graham Dance Company, which celebrated both her legacy and how the company is moving forward with its new work.

This appeared to be one of the biggest successes of Program 1. Across three works, these very different movement languages seamlessly spoke to one another. Cortege was a powerful conclusion to the evening because the piece didn’t fully resolve. Even visually, the lights went out before the black sheet covered all of the dancers. This gave the feeling that the movement continued on and left the audience contemplating how dance can be carried from one generation to the next. 

The result was a reminder of why the Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center resonates as a New York tradition. It revitalizes older works, prioritizes emerging works and artists, and allows new generations of audiences to fall in love with dance over and over again as the art form evolves.

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