Acocella review May 9, 2005 link

[Jack Reed]

Joan Acocella reviews the Martha Graham Dance Company at City Center, Mark Morris Dance Group at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble from India at the Joyce Theatre, for the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/dancing/a...509crda_dancing

The Graham troupe is still recovering from the terrible period it went through in the nineteen-eighties and nineties - that is, just before and after Graham's death, in 1991, at the late and unwatchful age of ninety-six.  During that time, the dancers went in for near-comical overacting...  Some dancers, especially the senior ones, have not given up the heart-attack style of performing...  The acting should be in the steps.  That's where Graham put it, and slowly, slowly, it is coming back home.

[T]he Mark Morris Dance group...opened with a dance, "From Old Seville," that has been performed only a few times.  So for most of the audience this was a premiere, and it was heaven.  Morris was one of the greatest dancers this country ever produced...  Morris, to many people, is not just a choreographer.  He is a "personality," and they want to see him on the stage.  In "From Old Seville," they did.  ...he is an utter dynamo, his footwork thrillingly speedy and precise...  The one really new work...was "Rock of Ages," set to Schubert's "Notturno" for piano trio. ...  In one piercing moment, a man puts his arms out sideways and a woman stretches her arms across his at a ninety-degree angle.  You are moved, and you don't know why...  Morris's "music dances" stay in the mind much longer [than a few minutes], and I think that's because of the inherently tragic confrontation between the body, so vulnerable and earthbound, and the music, soaring and free.

...Most of [surupa Sen's dances for Nrityagram] are for five, and to watch how [she] plays two off against three, and then a different two against a different three, and then maybe one against four, is like watching a school of fish or a flight of birds, in their maneuvers.  Together with these mathematics, we get an utterly visceral dance impulse.  The knees bend, the feet smack the floor, the bodies give and give and don't stop giving.

The "hard-copy" version includes a full-page photo of Graham dancer Fang-Yi Sheu the on-line version omits.

[dirac]

Thank you -- I have the magazine at home but hadn't gotten around to this piece yet. I like the comparison between live and taped music -- "ham and Spam."

[dirac]

In the same issue, Acocella has a brief profile in "Talk of the Town" of Ailey dancer Dudley Williams:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/arti...a_talk_acocella

[amitava]

One question the reviewer poses is regarding the finance of the Nrityagram troupe. From the past events that I have been involved with - and recent conversations with organizers/artists, I have some numbers. You may be shocked that the fee for a company or 3 musicians and one dancer visiting from India is between $2500 and $4000 per performance, depending on their reputation. This includes travel costs and artist fees. The local producer/organizers hosts provide transporation (local to the city) and puts them up usually in the homes of supporters. In most cases they perform on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday - fying from one city to another - for two months or so, and return to India.

The dance icons of India usually travel with a larger group of dancers and charge in the range of $7-10K per performance. Larger dance troups of lesser known artists with taped music and 4-12 dancers usually are in the 5K-7K range.

However more suprprising is that upcoming dancers are expected to pay organizers to present them in Chennai. This applies more to the Bharatnatyam form of dance. The media, reviewers, and artists are very much aware of the situation and yet everyone accepts it.

I am not sure about the conditions in other cities and other forms of dance forms in India.

Pretty sad set of affairs.

[ViolinConcerto]

I saw Nrityagram last Spring and already have tickets for their next performance. They were technically excellent, choreographically complex, with a sophisticated visual intelligence behind their production.

I see as much Asian (especially Indian) dance as I can, having spent about a year in India many years ago, because I loved So. Indian dance, and Nrityagram is one of the best companies I have seen. (Odissi is probably the most visually interesting form for Western eyes.)

Thank goodness for world Music Institute here in NYC!

[Leigh Witchel]

I absolutely loved Nrityagram as well, but did the World Music Institute present them? I thought that was at Symphony Space and they were at the Joyce.

[ViolinConcerto]

Yes, they were at the Joyce last Spring, (as was a spectacular Cambodian group), but this year they have one or two dates at the Skirball Center throught WMI. Also, that was a personal sigh of gratitude as WMI has presented so much Asian dance in the past year or so. An "in the round" (nearly) performance of Balinese dance and music was presented at the Rose Theater/Jazz at Lincoln Center that really gave a feeling for how dance exists within village life in Bali.