Seeing Things: July 2003 Archives

Twyla Tharp Dance / Joyce Theater, NYC / July 28 - August 9, 2003

Forever reinventing her career in choreography, Twyla Tharp just offered New York a throwback to her past. Filling in at the Joyce Theater for the canceled season of Ballet Tech, her chamber-size dance group presented repertory items that ranged from three decades back to 2001—with entirely new personnel. The old hands are ferociously and stunningly at work in “Movin’ Out,” the all-dancing, no dialogue show to Billy Joel songs with which Tharp has attempted to transform the Broadway musical.

Not unexpectedly, the eight current members of Twyla Tharp Dance reward watching. The ability to make dancers as well as dances is a major component of Tharp’s gift. She has an uncanny eye for singular bodies and temperaments, along with the ability to coax and whip a performer’s latent powers into their fullest expression. In the current gang, I particularly liked Whitney Simler—who had the least to do, but did it with delicacy and a droll sweetness that evoked the ingenuous blond heroines of yesteryear’s Hollywood comedies—and Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, who emerged as the group’s unofficial star. Neshyba-Hodges combines glorious ballet technique with the least likely physique for classical work—that of a king’s jester. This odd coupling is enhanced by the most disarming smile I’ve seen on stage in many a season; it’s all modesty and delight.

The present troupe can’t claim to equal the original casts I saw in three of the four pieces presented: “The Fugue,” a landmark work that was the iconoclastic Tharp’s early letter to the world; the feisty, flirtatious “Known By Heart Duet”; “Westerly Round,” new to New York; and “Surfer at the River Styx,” which proposes marathon physical effort as the route to epiphany. Still—apart from some gratuitous vaudeville-style mugging and the insertion of acrobatic tricks where none previously existed—the current performers do these dances justice.

“Westerly Round” seems to be Tharp’s Americana piece. Think “Appalachian Spring” (Martha Graham). Think “Rodeo” (Agnes de Mille). Now think abstract and 60 years later. Tharp’s contribution to the O Pioneers! genre is a quartet, the basic square dance unit here twisted into comprising three guys and a single gal. Set to a jaunty fiddle score by Mark O’Connor, the choreography evokes frontier life, with its joys and sorrows, and the loneliness of the vast-plains landscape. After some lively group action, Neshyba-Hodges emerges as the hero in love, with the spunky, winsome Emily Coates as his sweetheart. The two other fellows get to play the hero’s rambunctious friends. The piece is lightweight, more a program filler and balancer than a keeper, but it confirms, once again, Tharp’s extraordinary ability to structure space in complex, infinitely satisfying ways.

Where will Tharp go from here? Recent interviews make no mention of new work for the concert dance stage. The venue seems to be too small for her: limited audience, no money, little clout. She’s consigning pieces from her rich repertory to other companies, high-end ballet troupes among them. Members of the present Twyla Tharp Dance will go into the touring company of “Movin’ Out,” whose title may well be prophetic.

Meanwhile, Tharp has written a book—apparently a How To manual on being creative, whatever one’s line of work—which she’ll be busy promoting. (The advance, she states flatly, paid for the two years of development she needed to make her Broadway venture fly.) My career in writing about dance coincided with Tharp’s evolution. My first professional piece was written about her, when she was an arrogant, ambitious, unique, and dazzlingly gifted neophyte, showing her work outdoors because she didn’t believe in theaters and vowing she’d let her dances vanish because she didn’t believe in repertory. Even then, her huge talent was unmistakable, and I’ve followed its course with unflagging interest. Her How To book, I’m told, emphasizes the importance of organized unremitting hard work. She knows whereof she speaks.

© 2003 Tobi Tobias

SEEING THINGS invited dancers and dance aficionados (as well as mere pedestrians) to respond to this question: Some would say that dancing is the cruelest profession, all but guaranteeing grueling work, physical pain, poverty, and heartbreak. Yet the field has always been rich in aspirants willing to dedicate their lives to the art. Why?

MINDY ALOFF writes:

People dance because it makes them feel whole. It's a heightened way to love life with everything one is. Frequently, when one is young, the systematic study of dancing supplies an element of well-being and a sense of the possibility that one might control one's tomorrow through one's actions today. Why one goes into dancing as a career is yet again a separate question. There, the issue is performance--a different thing yet from the dancing, as such--which supplies the hope that one might be recognized and approved by the world at large for this dedication and self-discipline in service of, as the poets say, "being beauteous." Not everyone who dances well needs to perform in public. Choreographers, when they are starting out, often (though not inevitably) still have a performer's perspective, and the line in their work between choreography and performance can be very thin. If they develop as artists, however—and, frequently, this means, when they stop performing themselves—they look and listen in a new way, and they think about dancing in a new, more distanced way as well.

The satisfactions of choreography include an intellectual element and, if the choreographer is also engaged with a particular dance technique, the headiness of scientific discovery. It is possible to become so immersed in these cerebral aspects that one forgets the fundamental joy of merging with the world that motivates dancers of all kinds, in all times and places. Still, even if one harbors the memory of that joy full strength, to make an audience see it and remember it, too, through the medium of a dance requires a deliberation and a patience in the creative process that are, in fact, the very opposites of the abandon and unself-consciousness being recreated. Deliberation and patience belong to maturity--to choreography, to teaching, to the impersonation of complicated characters through acting and pantomime, to musical nuance and subtlety. The large audience for dance isn't very interested in these things, nor should it be. They belong to the trials and tribulations of daily living that one attends theatrical dance to momentarily forget.

EVA YAA ASANTEWAA writes:

It's not just dance. From prehistoric times, the arts have performed a sacred function in human affairs. People are still drawn to artistic service as to a religious calling. Religious callings require discipline and sacrifice that distinguish the called from the ordinary run of humanity. This is quite outside the rule of reason which would normally counsel self-preservation and security but prevent ecstasy. Despite our reasonable caution, we want ecstasy. We want to explore and challenge ourselves, to break open our shells, break open the shell of the world, go "out there" and bring back what we've found. The body is a willful animal that wants to stretch. It wants to be a musical instrument and a gorgeous or uncanny splash of paint, and we cannot get around that unless we are not dancers, in which case we have an excuse to distract ourselves with other matters. Dancers have no excuse whatsoever.

MAINA GIELGUD writes:

Because it is a love affair, and when you love you go through a lot of pain and sacrifice and compromise to be with the person you love and make the relationship work. It's the same with dance. You love it, it gives you a lot back, and sometimes you hate it, yet inside yourself you know that it is worth everything you put into it. Because it is an eternal challenge to those who love challenges. Because it is the most wonderful yoga, which takes you out of yourself, while the results, however inefficient they may seem to oneself, give some pleasure, one hopes, some solace, inspiration, and fun to other people—people with whom one would perhaps have no communication in the normal course of events. Your dancing takes them away from the difficulties of their own lives. Because nothing can be more fulfilling than earning (initially, attempting to earn), one's living doing what one loves to do. The difficulties do not take away the love and passion. If anything, they increase it.

AUDREY ROSS writes:

I have always felt that, to paraphrase Martha Graham, you don't choose dance; dance chooses you. That may sound a little dramatic, but I really believe it's true. I don't think that anyone makes a practical decision to dance. Dancing is a profession filled with difficult demands and potential disappointment. One needs a good body to begin with, then good training. And then there is the problem of getting a job and advancing in the job. For most, there is not much money or recognition, and there are injuries to deal with and the prospect of finding another profession after the dancing years are over. In case this sounds morbid, I'll say now that there is nothing else like dancing for people who love the art. Anyone who wants to dance has to—and should—do it. Do something practical later; do what you love while you can.

LISA ROMA writes:

I love dance, as I love all the arts. I've always been moved by music, and I dance naturally. I am not a professional dancer, but dance is a vital part of life. It is an expression of the human spirit. You cannot cage spirit. It will be free. It will break down walls like waterfalls or a rushing river. Dance is passion, it is speechless, it is the soul of life itself.

JANE REMER writes:

Why dedicate your life to dance? My guess is that the pure joy of it, and the triumphs, and the total envelopment in a world of movement, music, and hot human bodies is enticement and reward enough. Nothing I have ever known—as a former dance teacher, performer, and student—compares to the utterly oblivious and transcendent high I would get when I was "in the zone." Preparation takes all the cognitive and physical force and resources you can muster; performance then turns the head off and moves all cognition into the muscles and sinews. It's a sublime place to be.

LOIS SCHAFFER writes:

Many professions have cruel aspects. For example, the medical profession can be grueling, with its long hours, physical pain from lack of sleep, and the heartbreak that comes from incurable patients and untimely deaths. However, doctors also experience the joy of successful treatments, even "miracle cures." What's more, they are normally self-sufficient economically. Attorneys are subjected to the same hard, long hours and may feel deep disappointment in losing an important case. Yet they also experience cases brought to justice and, like their colleagues in medicine, are usually economically secure. Physical pain, grueling work, poverty, and heartbreak can also be the lot of construction workers—and lives can be lost on the job. What the above professions do not offer, however, is the simultaneous connection of mind, body, and soul. While a doctor or lawyer uses the mind to communicate, the dancer uses the mind but translates thoughts into the body through movement—in essence "baring" the soul. Having experienced this joyful fusion, the dancer becomes willing to risk the work, the pain, the poverty, and even the heartbreak, in hope of receiving the art's ecstatic rewards.

LILA YORK writes:

It's a passion. Sometimes you transcend.

Walking lies at the heart of dancing. One step after another, the steps identical and uninflected, moving the body across the surface it stands on, through the space it dwells in--this fundamental material need only be given rhythm and pattern to become a dance that vies with the most intricate and elaborate choreography. Given a meaningful context as well, it can stir a viewer profoundly. Dance Insider, Vignettes 08/23/02

Some would say that dancing is the cruelest profession, all but guaranteeing grueling work, physical pain, poverty, and heartbreak. Yet the field has always been rich in aspirants willing to dedicate their lives to the art. Why?

Dancers and dance aficionados (as well as mere pedestrians) are invited to respond. If we gather enough eloquence, we will post it here. E-mail to ttobias@artsjournal.com.

Feminist doctrine, eager to dissuade us from giving over much attention to millinery and hairdos, cautions that what goes on inside a woman's head is far more significant than what's on it. A pair of feisty, engaging productions recently playing New York -- Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's "HairStories" and Regina Taylor's "Crowns," with choreography by Ronald K. Brown -- insist that the issue isn't so simple. Both works, generated by black artists, show that matters like hats and hair are far from being trivial or frivolous but, rather, harbor deep psychological and sociological significance. Dance Insider, Vignettes 12/19/02

Dance Theatre of Harlem / New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC / July 8-13, 2003

Ballet companies operate on the verge of insolvency. That’s a given. They depend on government support (generous abroad, but traditionally meager here in the States) and private generosity—from corporations and well-heeled, arts-minded individuals. They also depend on box office receipts, though to a lesser degree, because you could regularly sell out at a mega-venue like the New York State Theater (capacity 2700) or the Metropolitan Opera House (over 4000) and still not break even. Nevertheless, playing to a half-empty house doesn’t help any, economically.

So how do you fill those seats night after night? One way is by serving up what you imagine your target audience really wants to see. The notion that a ballet company exists in the service of art, its profile shaped by a leader with vision and/or a choreographer of genius, has given way to administration on a business model controlled by a board of directors operating in close cooperation with marketing pros. Not unexpectedly, these bottom liners assume that no sizeable paying public exists for what ballet does best—create a profoundly poetic imaginary universe through human bodies, exquisitely trained in a highly refined code, moving to music . No, the hard-headed managers argue, to remain viable, ballet must become less highbrow, more with-it. It must descend from Mt. Olympus into the street. It must cater to popular taste, co-opting the devices of show biz.

The result? The companies relegate masterworks from the classical dance canon to a secondary position in their repertory, neglect to coach them with the requisite care and understanding, or—as with landmark nineteenth-century story ballets like Swan Lake—jazz them up beyond recognition. Our major troupes pour a large part of their resources—time, money, attention, creative impulse—into new productions that are exorbitantly expensive and aesthetically disastrous. Ironically, they’re often theatrically inept as well, since classical ballet operatives rarely possess Broadway or Hollywood savvy.

Thus we got, last season, the New York City Ballet’s Thou Swell (choreography by Peter Martins) and American Ballet Theatre’s HereAfter (from Natalie Weir and Stanton Welch), ventures that are—you name it: all outside, no inside; wrongheaded; utterly lacking in enchantment; insincere; glitzy. If that weren’t enough, both—this is typical of hollow blockbuster shows—are long enough to induce catatonia in their unfortunate viewers.

And now, just this week, Dance Theatre of Harlem made one of its regrettably infrequent midtown Manhattan appearances (at the New York State Theater, as part of the Lincoln Center Festival) featuring a 70-minute concoction called St. Louis Woman: A Blues Ballet. Based on the 1946 musical by Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Arna Bontemps, and Countee Cullen, which had a couple of swell songs, it tells a trite story of romance, betrayal, and homicide in a sleazily glamorous forties club setting. Awkwardly attached to the main scene are an excursion to the thoroughbred racetrack and an interlude with Death (who may have a sideline as pimp to a handful of female “acolytes”). Inflated by garish, vulgar decor (Tony Walton) and gaudy, ill-tailored costumes (Willa Kim), the scene sears your eyeballs. Worse yet, the show parades out so many tired clichés about blacks and blacks-in-entertainment, it’s surprising the pc police didn’t raid the theater.

Michael Smuin, the choreographer of this unfortunate extravaganza, specializes in over-the-top theatricality, but on this occasion his results are flaccid. The melodramatic narrative line goes limp; the intervening group dances look like filler; and the duets for the principals resonate only in occasional phrases—as when, in a dance of grief, anger, and regret, the antihero manipulates his lady love so that she appears to float up and down his body, like a ship in troubled waters. Bafflingly, Smuin uses the academic ballet vocabulary where jazz would be far more suitable; the scene at the club, for instance, which cries out for stilettos, has the women walking flatfooted in their point shoes. He also pushes magpie larceny to the limit, filching from the unlikeliest bedfellows: Kurt Jooss, the Nicholas Brothers, and Bronislava Nijinska.

Arthur Mitchell, the heroic founder of DTH, has long insisted that his company provide “accessibility” along with artistic excellence. Excellence was evident in the troupe’s spirited renditions of Balanchine’s Serenade and Robbins’s Fancy Free. Still, Smuin’s so-called entertainment goes too far in the quest for the popular vote. Its ineptitude and tastelessness exploit the company’s dancers—famous for their elegance of body and soul—even more than its viewers. Two thirds of the way through the proceedings, my long-suffering companion drawled, “I think they’ve lost their way.” Her remark has wide—and dire—implications.

© 2003 Tobi Tobias

Nightswimming casts Limón veteran Nina Watt as-of all things-a tree viciously cut down. [The] exquisitely calibrated choreography details the disruption of the thrumming systems that constitute botanical life, while Watt embodies a mute consciousness of the fatal attack-a kind of biological shock and grief-that offered profound ramifications. (Bannon) [The] ambitious new Garden . . . set to traditional Iraqi music . . . does a good job of suggesting an intricate cultural community inhabited by tillers of the soil and odalisques, fiery demons and beneficent goddesses. (Rübsam) Village Voice 07/09/03