Fall For Dance Program #2

Fall For Dance Program #2 brought audiences some heat, a little cool and lots of energy.
Exuberance and friendship overflowed when the curtain rose on an animated group of dancers and musicians circling the stage  teasing out samba steps and percussive beats in Leonardo Sandovala and composer/musician Gregory Richardson’s I Didn’t Come To Stay. The long, lanky Sandoval joins the corners of  tap and funk, to house dance and West African forms. Deep inside, the “beat” repeats and connects the Afro-diasporic forms to an enthusiastic audience. 

In Pam Tanowitz’s No Nonsense, two outstanding dancers, Melissa Toogood and Herman Cornejo– a modern dancer and a ballet dancer — unite in  understated choreography  to a musical duet performed on stage by Kate Davis and Katie Geissinger. Moving in separate spheres, the dancers produce clean lines and unexpected twists — like standing back to back and pressing a foot on the other’s calf. Other tokens of familiarity seed the  duet. Clean and explicit, they connect in open lifts and body to body supports that slip into casual caresses. 

Ailey dancers must delight choreographers because of their ability to morph into most dance styles. In the case of Busk by Aszure Barton, they meld into a single organism bound by a shared mystery. At times hunched over. they lift themselves, chests open arms loose, in elevated expressions of openness and readiness. Sounds of gypsy and choral music thicken the sense of a protective and expansive community.  
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis