TIDES: JOHN JASPERSE PROJECTS

John Jasperse’s Tides is an ethereal body of work presented during the La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival 2025. Guests entered from the back, climbing risers into a vast space resembling an open barn- or an airplane hangar. White floors and a white back wallmamplified the openness, and when the lights blacked out, it was absolute.

It began suddenly: five dancers appeared against the white wall, lit by warm, orange headlight-like spheres. Four billowed forward in waves; the fifth held back, until stepping into the space with a direct gaze and gestures toward the audience. A sharp, white light at the front of the stage drowned out the warmth, illuminating the single dancer in a moonlit spotlight as she engaged the audience, playful and present. Around her, dancers moved like leaves through pollen-dense water—fluid, weighted, circular, propelled by palpable energy.

A circle of moonlight traveled midstage introducing an electronic ricocheting beat, and the dancers responded with buoyant, rhythmic movement silhouetted by shifting lights. Beams lit the sides of the stage like a runway. Movement became increasingly dynamic, shifting weight and shape reminiscent of countertechnique: pressing through space.

Dancers left and returned in sleek, metallic costumes — no twomalike — replacing their black floor-length dresses.A couple walked to the back wall, triggering a brilliant flash of white; a soft cello began an intimate duet, their bodies intertwining with a stop-and-go, breath-like rhythm. With dazzling, sparkling mini shorts, another dancer entered, her articulate, beyond natural movement a sharp contrast to the earlier release.

The ensemble rejoined in shifting configurations—a quintet becoming duets, solos, trios—each transformation rippling like tides under a full moon. The runway lights returned and silhouetted beat-driven patterns of walking began, charging and redirecting like molecules in collision. One dancer remained, transitioning to the floor, grounded in a pool of light. Her solo wove the weighted softness of the beginning with the dynamic morphing vocabulary built throughout the
piece.

Two dancers reentered, reigniting the warm backlights, sliding down the wall with force as nature sounds filled the space. Their movement became tumultuous giving way to reimagining the invigorated excitement from earlier. They were flying, eating up space and music without inhibition. Amidst the flights, a soloist entered, her body buzzing and gestures fluttering. Another dancer joined, not to amplify but to soothe. She held the fluttering soloist, and put the shaking to rest.

The brightness (literally) and rampant energy levels in the room dimmed. She put her head under the arm of the former bee, before facing her. Pangs of a piano drowned the space in their emotional togetherness. They were so close, one’s breath brushing away the loose hair on the other’s forehead. As the final dancers rejoined, the runway lights glowed warmly, shifting Tides into an existential realm. Dancers separated into pairs and trios, continuously interchanging between upright and on the ground. Warm light flooded the apron of the space, and nowhere else. At last they came to the front of the stage, reaching upward into the light, shielding their eyes, then gently pulling the imagined warmth into their bodies. The light traveled through them, melting their reach into their chests, their legs, and finally into the floor. They lifted their hands once more, shielding the last races of light, until darkness returned.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Emma Morris