Limón Dance Company
Oct 26, 2025
TURN IT OUT WITH TILER PECK & FRIENDS
Oct 30, 2025
Review by Celia Ipiotis
ABT broke open its fall season at the David H. Koch Theater by showcasing three decades of works by master choreographer Twyla Tharp.
The rarely seen Sextet (1992) unfurled a group of six couples against the soundtrack by Colin Jacobsen, Cafe Tacuba, and Ljova. Tharp’s clever shifts of weight and direction flipped the ballet into a rhythmic and spatially calculated exchange between the couples. Catherine Hurlin and Jake Roxander caught the spirit of casual exactitude. Although the corps did not enlarge the overall production, the duets successfully drew the dancers into a cohesive romp.
Another purely abstract work, Bach Partita (1983) was well performed by the pliant Chloe Misseldine and James Whiteside, a well matched Isabella Boylston and Andrew Robare plus a taut Christine Shevchenko and Calvin Royal III. Violinist Kobe Malkin effortlessly played the Bach Partita in D minor that fueled the prismatic clusters. Fiendishly difficult, the swift footed dancers hardly had time to complete a movement before flying forward or backward into a completely alternate universe of the ballet. Unexpected partnering, and points of contact like two elbows hooked together added to the visual overflow.This is one of those ballets that requires multiple viewings in order to digest the dance’s winding intricacies.
Built for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Push Comes to Shove was a crowd pleaser from the moment the curtain went up on Misha in 1976 wearing a slanted bowler hat. A romp in the best sense of the word, Tharp applied her sly wit, and game-changing, counter intuitive movement combinations into a slinky, sensual dance caper. The milky bent kneed turns, snappy twists and fleeting runs captured the dance’s ebullient response to a score that featured Joseph Lamb and Franz Joseph Hayden.
Always difficult to emulate any role originated by Barysnikov, Isaac Hernandez took a viable stab at the insouciant rascal who slid in and out of the picture, winking while executing devilishly off center twists and turns that morphed into saucy hip rolls and hat tricks.
Credit must also go to Nancy Raffa for staging Sextet and Susan Jones who staged both Bach Partita and Push Comes to Shove.
While a dancer with ABT, Susan Jaffe, now the company’s Artistic Director, performed Tharp’s Push Comes To Shove in 1984. What a thrill to be able to revive ballets that impacted your artistic life.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis
