LIMON DANCE: THE WOMEN

Review by Mary Seidman

Artistic Director, Dante Puleio, discussed his creative programming of Limón’s historical dances into the present day; this year honoring the female perspective…and dedicating the season to former Limón dancer and choreographer, Jennifer Muller, who passed away recently. 

Harpies, a four-minute excerpt from “The Winged” (1966), opens the evening, referencing the half-human, half-bird in Greek and Roman mythology, a personification of storm winds. Five women enter in a unison diagonal line ending in a slide to the floor to a gurgling musical score by Simon Sadoff, with incidental music by Hank Johnson. The huntresses gather, seduce, frighten, and warn with their primal poses and camaraderie, a statement of female ferocious, mysterious power. 

Truly outstanding was Dances for Isadora, Five Evocations of Isadora Duncan (Limón 1971) to music by Chopin — an ode to a timeless feminist. Frances Lorraine Samson, in Primavera, enters in a simple leotard sashed in pale green chiffon, referencing Duncan’s flowing Grecian dresses atop bare legs. She exquisitely skitters like the wind, swirling, twisting, turning, with asymmetrical upper and lower body gestures and flowing arms. 

Mariah Gravelin in Maenad, meaning the “raving one” in Greek mythology, skips and sautés in phrases of hope that change to concern.  Niobe is about a woman whose children are killed by the gods because of her boastfulness. Draped in a long, flowing burgundy colored dress, Deepa Liegel appears dragging her feet. With fisted hands, she rises in anguish, holding her belly, cradling a metaphorical baby in her arms, evoking Duncan’s grief stricken “Mother,” (1921), about the death of her two children. 

La Patrie, danced by Jessica Sgambelluri, sashed in red, holding a red scarf, presents a dramatic solo with twisted shapes. Fisted hands, anguished and sudden jerking phrases are reminiscent of Duncan’s “Revolutionary.”   The final solo Scarf Dance, featured Savannah Spratt, dressed in black, strutting in and then departing. All the dancers re-emerges, evoking memories of Isadora’s life until the final chapter when Spratt ties a scarf around her neck and ends the dance by strangulating herself.

Orfeo (Limón 1972), with music by Beethoven, recaptures the story of love and loss from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.  Risa Steinberg, performance mentor, recreated this work on two women. Lauren Twomley in Greek warrior attire (costume recreation by Quinn Czejkowski), presents a strong masculine muscularity and charisma. Her striking leaps and pirouettes pine for the beloved. Mariah Gravelin, in white gown and veiled shroud, as Eurydice, is a ghost from the underworld returning for one last visitation to her lover. 

 A world premiere, I Must Be Circumstanced, by Israeli visual artist Hilla Ben Ari, is a reimagining of Limón’s 1949 “Moor’s Pavane,” based on Shakespeare’s story of Othello. Desdemona and Emilia are represented here by four women, often mirroring each other, or resisting, walking away or toward themselves, in stillness, changing of focus, and distance. Ben Ari attempts to discern the inner life of these two women caught in the antagonism between two men. The piece expresses remote loneliness and detachment. 

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Mary Seidman