Limon Dance Company

[sandik]

On a cheerful note -- you can watch the company in excerpts from the 2018 Pillow performance as part of the  Pillow's virtual festival for free.

[miliosr]

I've been rereading Pauline Koner's autobiography, Solitary Song, this summer. The chapter on Doris Humphrey is unintentionally revealing regarding the disappearance of the Humphrey repertory. As I read along, I kept a tally of the dances Humphrey created from 1946-1958 and Koner mentions:

Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Meijas (1946)

Day on Earth (1947)

Corybantic (1948)

Invention (1949)

Night Spell (1951)

Fantasy and Fugue (1952)

Ritmo Jondo (1953)

Ruins and Visions (1953)

Felipe el Loco (1954)

Airs and Graces (1955)

Theatre Piece No. 2 (1956)

Dance Overture (1957)

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 (1958)

The last time the Limon company performed any of these dances was in 2006, when Day on Earth and Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Meijas were revived. The latter was supposed to be revived in excerpt perform this summer but, other than that, the Humphrey repertory is non-existent at Limon.

Edited November 18, 2020 by miliosr

[miliosr]

The Limon Company has announced on its Instagram account that founding company member Betty Jones has died. Jones was a key member of the company for two decades -- she was the original Desdemona in The Moor's Pavane -- and taught the Limon technique for decades.

Daniel Lewis wrote of her: "In the rocky period after Doris [Humphrey's] death, a quiet, steady development in Limon technique had been taking place at Juilliard with Betty Jones, Ruth Currier, Lucy Venable and June Dunbar adding some of their own ideas and helping Jose refine the technique. Betty Jones became the principal tutor in . . . teaching students how to move efficiently and properly, using the length of the muscles, and teaching the principles of alignment and breathing as developed by Lulu Sweigard, a pioneer in the field of movement analysis. [I]n Betty's [classes], they learned how each part of the body relates to a central axis and how to use the central axis to balance and suspend."

[miliosr]

Dance Magazine has published this tribute to Betty Jones:

Former Limón Star and Teacher Betty Jones, 94, Has Died - Dance Magazine

 

[miliosr]

The New York Times has published an obituary for Betty Jones:

Betty Jones, Founding Member of Limón Troupe, Dies at 94 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

[dirac]

I'm sorry I missed this update. Only today I ran across an obit for Jones and was going to post it, and obviously you beat me to it, miliosr. She looks like a perfect Desdemona.

[miliosr]

8 hours ago, dirac said:

I'm sorry I missed this update. Only today I ran across an obit for Jones and was going to post it, and obviously you beat me to it, miliosr. She looks like a perfect Desdemona.

The Limon company livestreamed a performance from Kaatsbaan last Saturday night and they dedicated the performance to Betty Jones. The livestream also included a brief feature about her long career as a dancer with Limon and as a teacher of the technique.

I didn't write about the performance because this thread attracts so little attention that there was no point to it. I registered for the livestream so I'm still able to access it on Vimeo until Wednesday. I don't know if it's freely available on Vimeo otherwise -- it might be.

[dirac]

Thank you, I will have a look. I would like to see that.

 

[Kathleen O'Connell]

5 hours ago, miliosr said:

I don't know if it's freely available on Vimeo otherwise -- it might be.

It is! Here's the link:  https://vimeo.com/494232574

It will be available until Wednesday, December 30 at 10pm.

Here's the program:
The Moor’s Pavane (1949) by José Limón
Suite Donuts (2020) by Chafin Seym (Co-commissioned by the American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Works.)
There is a Time (1956) by José Limón

[miliosr]

danceviewtimes has reviewed the livestreamed performance:

To Everything There is a Season - danceviewtimes

 

[cubanmiamiboy]

"After a year's absence from performing in front of live audiences due to COVID-19, Dance NOW! Miami (DNM) returns to the stage on Saturday, April 3 at 8:30 pm, bringing their second program of the season to the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center. One of the leading contemporary companies in Florida, they will perform the reconstruction of José Limón's iconic La Malinche, as part of their annual Masterpiece In Motion series, along with other works.

La Malinche is the first piece Limón choreographed for his own company in 1947. It is based on the real life story of an indigenous Nahua woman who played a key role in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and is a legendary character in Mexican cultural history. The piece has been reconstructed on DNM by Daniel Lewis, Limón's protege and former Artistic Director of the Limon Dance Company after the founder's death, well known in Miami as the Founding Dean of the Dance Department of New World School of the Arts. La Malinche is presented in collaboration with the José Limón Foundation and the 75th anniversary of the Limón Company."

https://www.dancenowmiami.org/events/program2

[miliosr]

The Limon company will be performing Doris Humphrey's Air for the G String and a suite from Jose Limon's The Winged tonight at Bryant Park in NYC.

[miliosr]

Limon will be losing its executive director after 8 years:

"It is with both sadness and gratitude that we announce that our Executive Director, Juan José Escalante, will be stepping down from the position effective December 31, 2021." 

"After eight years of leadership, Juan José leaves the José Limón Dance Foundation financially solid, under good management, and on an upward trajectory. He is pursuing new horizons with another leading dance organization, and while we are not at liberty to disclose his new position, we wish him a bright and successful future there."

In other news, Limon will be celebrating its COVID-delayed 75th anniversary with a 12 day stand (April 19-May 2, 2022) at the Joyce in New York. Repertory will include a reconstruction of Limon's Danzas Mexicanas (1939), revivals of Chaconne (1942) and Psalm (1967 - with the original score), and a first ever company performance of Waldstein Sonata (begun by Limon before his death in 1972 and finished by his assistant Daniel Lewis in 1975). There will also be a revival of Doris Humphrey's Air for the G String, and new work by Raul Tamez and Oliver Tarpaga.

Finally, the company premiered a new, filmed version of The Winged (1966) tonight:

The Winged Livestream | José Limón (limon.nyc)

 

 

[Helene]

15 minutes ago, miliosr said:

Juan José leaves the José Limón Dance Foundation financially solid, under good management, and on an upward trajectory.

And that's the way you want to leave.  Good luck to him in his next position, and I hope the Company can find a worthy successor.

[miliosr]

Artistic Director Dante Puleio discusses the company's two-week New York season, which begins tonight at the Joyce:

THE DANCE ENTHUSIAST ASKS: Dante Puleio, Artistic Director of Limón Dance Company, about Limón's 75th Anniversary Season | The Dance Enthusiast (dance-enthusiast.com)

 

[miliosr]

In celebration of the 75th anniversary of its first season (1946-47), the Limon Dance company has been performing for two weeks (April 19 - May 1) at the Joyce Theater in New York. The season consists of two programs featuring four works by Jose Limon, one by Doris Humphrey and two new works by Olivier Tarpaga and Raul Tamez. I was able to see Program A on April 23rd (evening) and April 24th (afternoon).

First Half:

Air for the G String (1928)

Program A began with Doris Humphrey's Air for the G String. Humphrey, who was Jose Limon's great mentor and first artistic director of his company, composed Air for the G String not long after she had decamped from the Denishawn company. Set to Bach and lasting only 5-6 minutes, Air for the G String is more of a stately processional than a dance. Five women walk and bend while draped in voluminous robes. The piece is slight but suggestive for within its brief running time Humphrey sets out her burgeoning ideas about the body and its interplay with gravity. The seeds of what would achieve full expression as Limon Technique were planted with this walk-dance.

Psalm (1967)

Flash forward nearly 40 years to Jose Limon's Psalm, which represented the Humphrey-Limon aesthetic at its fullest flowering. One of Limon's large scale works of the 1960s, Psalm is based on Andre Schwarz-Bart's 1959 novel The Last of the Just. The Schwarz-Bart novel focuses on the idea that there are 'Just Men' in history who bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. Limon's danced version of the novel contains a 'Burden Bearer' dancing alone and in counterpoint with a massed corps of 'Psalmists' consisting of the entire Limon company and members of the second company.

Set to Eugene Lester's highly percussive score with alternating sung sections (the Burden Bearer sections) for a baritone, Psalm's greatest attributes are in its full-throated (bodied?) expression of the Humphrey-Limon dance ideas of fall, recovery and suspension and its revelation of Limon as an ingenious craftsman then at the height of his creative powers. Whether in the numerous danced sections for the Psalmists or in the solos for the Burden Bearer, the complexity and diversity of Limon's variations are almost overwhelming - the movement was pouring out of him at the point.

I saw two different Burden Bearers: Nicholas Ruscica at the evening show and Joey Columbus at the afternoon show. Both were wonderful but very different from one another. Ruscica is leaner and lither than Columbus and so his solos had more of a quicksilver element to them. But Columbus, with his greater frame and height, came closer to what Limon himself would have looked like in repertory. Watching him made me think of the modern dance choreographer Cliff Keuter's comment about Limon that, "seeing his large body fighting against gravity took you half-way to theater already."

Psalm is often spoken of as a late-period Limon masterpiece. As much as I admired the extraordinary variations, I would confine my ranking of Psalm to semi-masterpiece status. The reason being is that too often the Burden Bearer and Psalmist sections alternate with one another. Even when they do intersect, they remain oddly in parallel. It's as if Limon choreographed a masterly solo set to sung music and masterly group sections set to a percussive store and then tried to create a pivot between the two using Andre Schwarz-Bart's thematic material. But the pivot never truly occurs and so the audience is left with a literary dance that doesn't cohere entirely but is extremely impressive nonetheless as a species of choreography. In other words, you can watch Psalm abstractly.

Will review the second half of the program in another post!

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by miliosr

[miliosr]

The second half of Program A consisted of Jose LImon's great solo Chaconne and a world premiere by the Burkina Faso choreographer Olivier Tarpaga, Only One Will Rise.

Chaconne (1942)

The program note states:

"The Chaconne as a dance form originated in Mexico during the Spanish occupation. Bach employed the strict musical form of the Chaconne but enriched it with powerful emotional implications. Limon has tried to capture in his dance both the formal austerity and the profound feeling of the music."

The dance begins with the soloist and a violinist (Johnny Gandelsman) standing side-by-side on stage. As Gandlesman plays Bach's Chaconne from Partita #2 in D Minor, the soloist performs Limon's austere - but beautiful - evocation of Bach's music. 

As part of the 75th anniversary celebration, artistic director Dante Puleio invited dancers from outside the company to perform Chaconne in addition to various Limon soloists. I saw Donovan Reed from Kyle Abraham's A.I.M. (evening) and Savannah Spratt from the Limon company (afternoon). Of the two, my mild preference was for Reed, whose muscular body made for an interesting counterpoint to the formal, "classical" intricacies of Limon's movement. Spratt performed it beautifully - perhaps too much so. Her Chaconne was seamless but lacked the element of counterpoint that made Reed's performance so intriguing. Also, Reed's Chaconne, while more segmented and rougher than Spratt's, had the advantage of suggestion - one could imagine what Limon himself would have looked like in this part after watching Reed.

One more note: There was a nice bit of symmetry to the two halves of Program A as Air for the G String and Chaconne are both set to compositions by Bach.

Only One Will Rise (2022)

When Jose Limon died, Ruth Currier, who became the company's 3rd artistic director after Doris Humphrey and Limon, instituted the policy of commissioning new works from inside and outside the company. Carla Maxwell (the 4th director for 38 years) and Colin Connor (the 5th director for 4 years) continued this policy and ventured far and wide amongst modern, postmodern and contemporary choreographers regardless of whether or not the commissioned choreographers had any connection whatsoever to the Limon aesthetic.

For his first New York season as artistic director, Dante Puleio has also continued the policy but instead of trying to forge strained connections to alien traditions, has commissioned choreographers who have looked to Limon himself for inspiration. Only One Will Rise is one result.

Specifically evoking Psalm, Olivier Tarpaga's dance also has a central figure who is both part of the various vignettes that follow in succession and alien to them. The movement combines a kind of controlled frenzy (like Psalm taken to an outer limit) with elements from Limon's own works. (There is a moment, when the dancers are in deep squats looking up at the light, that is straight out of the opening in Limon's Missa Brevis.)

As for Only One Will Rise, the results are often arresting. But the attempt to create symmetry between Limon and Tarpaga is perhaps unfortunate for the latter. Limon was an experienced craftsman of nearly 40 years experience by the time he made Psalm and that experience shows in the "tightness" of the variations. Tarpaga's creation is considerably looser (by design?) than Limon's and that looseness makes it difficult for the viewer to sustain the through-line of what Tarpaga is trying to say through the dance. I could see where Limon was going with Psalm even if he didn't get there entirely by the end. But I was hard pressed to sustain a through-line for Only One Will Rise; intriguing as the individual segments were.

Edited April 30, 2022 by miliosr

[miliosr]

Last thought: Isn't it wonderful that this jewel box of a company still exists at the 75th anniversary of the company's founding in 1946-47 and 50th anniversary of the founder's death?

By all rights, the company should have passed into history given that no successor was in Limon's place upon his death, no administrative structure existed and no one even knew who owned the dances. (The dances aren't mentioned in Limon's will.) When I think of the choreographers who were born shortly after Limon was (Erick Hawkins, Alwin Nikolais, Anna Sokolow) and how difficult (if not impossible) it is to see their work, I have to think of the Limon's company continuing ability to present the founding choreographer's work as a small miracle.

[miliosr]

Limon has a new Executive Director:

"The José Limón Dance Foundation is thrilled to announce the appointment of Michelle Preston as incoming executive director, starting November 1."

"Since 2014, Preston has served as the Executive Director of SITI Company, an ensemble theater company based in New York City. While at SITI, Preston led a multi-year planning process to celebrate and preserve the legacy of the ensemble. Her prior experience in New York City also includes work with dance organizations Urban Bush Women, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and the School of American Ballet." 

 

[FPF]

I saw Limon Dance Company on Friday evening at the Egg in Albany, NY. There was also a pre-show talk with the artistic director, Dante Puleio, and a post-show Q&A session with Puleio and the dancers. As the performance was sponsored by Union College, there were a number of enthusiastic students in the audience.

The program consisted of Doris Humphrey's Air for the G String and Limon's Orfeo, Chaconne, and Waldstein Sonata, the latter of which was revived and completed by Daniel Lewis after Limon's death.

Miliosr described Air on a G String (1928) above, and I don't have much to add--the costumes are very key players in this work. The dancers described performing this as somewhat spiritual and meditative, which you could tell in watching them.

Orfeo is a relatively work of Limon's based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. As per the program, "Orfeo, dancing his lyrical lament of love and loss, calls his beloved Eurydice from the dead. Swathed in veils and protected by her Guardians, she come and their duet of the love of the souls ensues. The reality of death comes and Eurydice returns to Hades, leaving Orfeo once again with his tortuous doubts and hopes." This is one of Limon's last works, premiering just months before his death and not long after his wife's death, which provided the impetus for his choice of this story. It included more virtuosic dancing, especially for Orfeo. Orfeo was danced by Nicholas Ruscica and Eurydice by Frances Lorraine Samson.

Chaconne was next on the program and is the only dance on the program that I had seen previously. In that case, at Jacob's Pillow, an archival film of Limon dancing was shown and then danced live with several dancers each performing part of the role. Here, it was performed by just one dancer, Savannah Spratt, and I much preferred seeing it this way. 

Last, but not least was my favorite, Waldstein Sonata, which was Limon's last work, to Beethoven's Piano Sonata no 21 in C Major, Opus 53. As I indicated early, it was not complete at his death. In an answer to a question from the audience, we were told that all of the first movement had been choreographed and there were parts of the second and third movements, but the strings of movement hadn't been put together. It was reconstructed and first performed in 1975, 3 years after Limon's death. I certainly couldn't tell any differences between the quality of the different movements. This was a very bright and happy dance for four couples, and it ended the evening on a very good note.