Eiko and Koma at City Center

[flipsy]

Watching Eiko and Koma's "Snow" from the top balcony of City Center was a little like flying over Mout Fuji, while watching pilgrims inch up the path to the summit. The dance unfolds on a floordrop of swirling blue and white, with just a few paper snowflakes drifting down. The movements are glacial. Man and woman approach, struggle, circle around each other, come together again. The woman falls to her knees at his feet; the man pulls away, as the light fades and a haunting vocal melody returns to silence. It's not much in the way of action or plot, but it was the most indelible image of Friday night's program at City Center. Every moment of the dance was like a painting in slow motion.

It was an evening of striking images. Among them:

Reggie Wilson's Fist and Heel Performance Group, which was four guys in ghetto clothes, stomping, bopping and chucking each other around, out of sync with a slow wailing spiritual, sung a capella by a gospel quartet. This piece was truly African-American, combining equal parts of both continental cultures, a powerful mix of frustration, oppression, and joy.

Bare-chested Desmond Richardson's solo in a ragged red tunic, gyrating and vibrating to music by Prince.

Athletic dancers of the Boston Ballet, drawing circles with hands, feet, arms and legs. "Plan to B" by Jorma Elo featured lots of ronde des jambes, turning leaps, pirouettes in second and other sweeping round gestures, but not much in the way of development.

And finally, Paul Taylor' dancers, piling up in heaps and dashing around in pairs, tracing the patterns of Bach's music. This "Promethean Fire" is not my favorite Taylor piece, mostly because I think the emotional, sometimes frantic quality of the movement does not fit with the formal restraint and power of the music. I should add that the audience loved it. It was another $10 capacity crowd at City Center's Fall for Dance Festival, with lots of young people who came to enjoy themselves, and they did.

Edited October 3, 2004 by flipsy

[Alexandra]

Thanks very much for that review, flipsy. This was arguably one of the most exciting dance events in New York in the past several seasons. The mix of companies, the enthusiastic crowds -- AND THE $10 TICKET PRICE. I hope some of the bean counters are watching. (No, even a sell out at $10 a head won't pay the bills, but every performance has to be subsidized -- $60 a ticket doesn't break even either. And perhaps they could do an experiment -- where is the break point? Will people take a chance for $15, or $20, or $25? But full houses for dance that was both unfamiliar and familiar....that's a story.)