FALL FOR DANCE PROGRAM #2

New York’s City Center theater was packed with an eager audience as CEO Michael Rosenberg introduced Program 2 of the 23rd Annual Fall for Dance Festival, featuring three outstanding works.

First up was choreographer Juel D. Lane’s HEIRBORNE (my mama ain’t never touched the sky, but she gave me wings), danced impeccably by Philadelphia’s PHILADANCO! 

The piece references black aviation pioneers (Tuskegee airmen, Bessie Coleman, first black female pilot, and Mae Jamison, first black astronaut), as inspiration behind the piece. Six dancers and then a seventh enter to humming sound that then turns into “2BMe,” written and arranged and performed by RAHBI, with lyrics expressing “I want to be free, I want to be me…” Non stop body twitches and contortions fill the stage relentlessly, with steps on almost every beat.  Occasional wing spans reference the idea of flight, but there was little aerial movement in sight. The piece ends with the gratuitous sound of an airplane taking off. 

While demonstrating the energy and vitality of this marvelous company, the piece lacked a coherent message beyond the beautiful dancing.

Robbie Fairchild’s Players’ world premiere of Lord Chamberlain’s Men impressed from beginning to end. The cast (Robbie Fairchild as William Shakespeare; Nico Greetham as George/Lord Chamberlain; Lauren Lovette as Anne Hathaway; Vincenzo Di Primo as Alfonso; and Rachel Lockhart as Emilia) filled the stage with theatrical storytelling, history, luscious, sensual, erotic dancing and choreography. All of this was enhanced by imaginative set design, and live music featuring a score by Tchaikovsky, with electronic sound composed by Ben Waters, and pianist/musical conductor SeanPeter Forte. 

Fairchild weaves history, theater, and his interpretation of Shakespeare’s real and possible love interests, referencing sonnets from the year 1591 that describe devotion to a young male youth. Narrator George informs us of the conventions of that time regarding male actors performing as women, and the love affairs between men that would often develop on and offstage; and the “Buggary Acts of 1583” (England’s first statutory sodomy law) that were sometimes enforced, punishing homosexuality. 

Fairchild’s own outstanding performance and choreography uniquely showcased homoerotic duets: male bodies intertwined, stretched, lifted, encircled in rapturous sensuality.  He repeats this romanticism in duets between Alfonso and Emilia, and between himself as Shakespeare with long suffering wife, Anne Hathaway. 

But the incredible finale, where Shakespeare’s three love interests shadow his solo as he confronts the complexity of his life, his works, his power; papers and scripts falling from the sky, says it all. At one point, he lifts both man and woman in an incredibly passionate trio: tangled, messy love… and his ultimate loneliness surrounding the genius that he was.

Akram Kahn’s 2023 Vertical Road (Reimagined) premiered to finalize the evening with a stellar, gripping performance by the Boston Ballet. Rarely does one have such a “felt experience” during a dance performance as with this evening’s production. Choreography, lighting, set design, dancing, special effects, costumes…all came together as one unified whole. Kahn’s masterpiece expressed one’s search for meaning in the vast nothingness and everything in this life and beyond.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Mary Seidman