YY DANCE COMPANY

YY Dance Company (YYDC) recently premiered the second movement of a 3-part
contemporary dance trilogy at New York Live Arts. Titled Somewhere, this
installment follows the debut of Nowhere in June 2023 at Chelsea Factory. Artistic director, founder, choreographer Yue Yin explained in a post-show conversation that this trilogy’s life began as a creative task, a challenge to the status quo of dance making, where pieces come to life, have a lifespan for the times and frequencies they are performed, and are then left behind. Instead, each piece in the trilogy builds upon the last, forming a cohesive exploration rather than isolated works.

Yin’s choreography, rooted in her innovative technique FoCo, merges intensity with gentleness, athleticism with subtlety, and fluidity with precision. The movement quality is liquid and seamless, while the dancers’ bodies remain acutely articulate. They are constantly in control, in body and in dynamic, within the work. The music is intense, the set equally as monumental, but it is the movement that determines the emphasis that the audience may take away.

Vital to the meaning and depth built in YYDC’s work is the dancers’ complete immersion and rich knowledge of Yin’s FoCo voice, developed through her own cultural and artistic lineage. Throughout the work, intimate duets punctuate dynamic ensemble performances. The dancers’ abilities to absolutely consume space, and also make so much out of so little space is incredible.

The use of absent rhythms unifying the dancers surprised the audience, allowing the movers to transcend. They are connected by something indiscernible to the viewers, and this separation between audience and YYDC is another layer of what makes this performance so special. They seem to exist in another realm that Yin and collaborators have built in the space.

For content creation, rehearsal director Grace Whitworth explained that Yin begins with an extreme “core-phrase” that is as dynamic as it is lengthy. It is this core-phrase that is manipulated and molded to each section. Group work is dissected into different groups of dancers, in different formations, moving through varying phrases, not only in movement, but in texture and sensation. And yet, just as quickly the dancers are able to move away from the core-phrase, they are able to jump right back into it. The dancers go in and out of it like gears abruptly jumping in and out of alignment.

Integral to Yin’s vision is the collaborative effort across all artistic elements— movement by Yin, music by Michel Banabila, costume design by Mike Esperanza, lighting by Solomon Weisbard —each is uniquely commissioned to enhance the overall impact of the performance. For Somewhere, the set by Maine-based artists, The Striped Canary, featured a wall of intricate paper sculptures illuminated in various brilliant ways, evoking a sense of magic and uncertainty.

The trilogy’s existential themes are heightened by symbolic portals present in both Nowhere and Somewhere, inviting audiences to ponder themes of existence and transition. As dancers move towards a single light source illuminating the portal in Somewhere, they hint at a journey continuing into the trilogy’s final part, Elsewhere.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Emma Edy Morris