GIBNEY DANCE

Gibney Company, led by Artistic Director Gina Gibney and Company Director Gilbert T. Small II, debuted at the Joyce Theater in 2021. Each season amplified their artistic range including this year’s presentation — from choreographic legends to emerging visionaries.

Ballet BC Artistic Director Medhi Walerski’s duet Silent Tides (2020) emphasized subtlety and surprise. A beam of horizontal light rose and descended, while the female solist Madison Goodman introduced the movement vocabulary. The first moment of contact set the tone when she placed her hands on Zack Sommer and the touch riplled through every muscle of his body. In the final moments, they reached out, but just before they could touch – blackout. The sensation was poignantly longingful.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s world premiere On Contemplation of Wailing followed. Dancers transformed from twirling tornadoes, to vibrating earthquakes, and rigid structures to viscous amoebas. As the curtain rose, the dancers emerged, in an array of spotlights. Like cataclysmic, bubbling ions, they repeated and passed around a revolving sequence, that whirled restlessly.

There were segments full of explosive, percussive movements, while other sections melted into one another. To conclude, a soloist emerged from, then reentered the cluster of her stilled counterparts. The reconnection expanded the company into a coiling ring, hands held, tension rigid, in a pool of spotlight.

Resident choreographer Lucinda Childs, offered Canto Ostinato (2015), and Mthuthuzeli November presented Vukani (2024). From the repetitive, precision-driven work of Childs, to November’s narrative and scenic journey, the two contrasted and complimented one another eloquently.

In Vukani, November released a ferocity of movement that tapped into the dancers’ technique, exposed by Childs’ movement, and transported it into an ancestral collection of energy. Contrasting the spritely energy of Childs, November articulated the vision through a narratively heavy weight. It sat upon the shoulders of the dancers, grounding them to
the floor.

Childs tapped into the sky, the dancers floating in motion alongside projected beams of bright white light that multiplied and danced alongside, and then November brought them back down to earth.

As contrasting as the pieces were, one thing remains the same: no voice will go unheard speaking through Gibney Company dancers.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Emma Edy Morris

***ALL PHOTOS BY Julieta Cervantes