From the very first moments of Gibney Company’s “Up Close,” at New York Live Arts, the power of the ensemble was evident: powerful and flexible dancers, artists who seemed to have physical ability in anything. Are from recreate itself last year – with a shift towards presenting commissioned work by many choreographers, rather than by its founder and artistic director, Gina Gibney – the company seemed to both fill the void and recreate much the same thing in contemporary American dance.
Distance: stable employment and resources for dancers and choreographers in the company structure. (Jobs!) More similarity: the choreography doesn’t always do justice to the talents of the dancers.
In the current season, a new trilogy debuted on Tuesday, with the most inspiring contributions coming from Rena Butler – the group’s first resident choreographer and featured dancer – and Yin Yue. , founder of the New York-based group Dance troupe YY. The last and longest work, “To the End of Love” by Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, about online dating, proves that the all-too-common phenomenon of great dancers devoting themselves to choreography is not too much. excellent.
In his ambitious and carefully compiled “Reconstruction/Construction (Part I)”, Butler takes cues from Plato’s “Fables of the Cave” to explore how outer structures shape internal landscape and social dynamics. Recorded chunks of text, which became increasingly warped as the passage progressed, messed up and disrupted Darryl J. Hoffman’s electronic stress score. Like dolls undulating in their robotic yet elastic motion, the six dancers deftly maneuver the walls of Tsubasa Kamei’s set. These lightweight panels start out as a house but come apart to create other types of boundaries and enclosures.
Jesse Obremski, during a first solo, is particularly eerie in his puppet-like physicality, a strange emptiness possessing his eyes and limbs. As they rearrange their worlds, jostling and conspiring with each other, the dancers periodically deliver garbled, frustrated speeches, feeling less perceived and fully integrated than they are. other aspects of the work. Movement is the more expressive and effective language here, up to the dramatic climax of the discovery of the powerful Jie-Hung Connie Shiau trapped within the walls of the rebuilt house – a safe haven. completely imprisoned – and eventually overcame them.
Yin’s “A Measurable Existence,” performed by Obremski and Jake Tribus on Tuesday, begins in calmer territory, a seemingly placid duet. However, it takes a powerful and satisfying turn as part of the illuminating grid descends, a slash that cuts through space, rendering the dancers more vibrant and revealing a more sinister side to the relationship. their relationship. (Asami Morita designed the light, which continues to reflect or direct the dancers’ energy.) The fluid and complex collaboration carries the duo through phases of tenderness and aloofness. Yin allows them to work out the surprising and detailed points of leverage, like shins nestled in a hip fold, as they cycle between symbiosis and separation, between one and two.
While not exactly creating a new background, “A Measurable Existence” is more about the intricacies of relationships, but much less so than Ramírez’s “To the End of Love,” a review. 28-minute commentary on online dating and its alienation impact. Sheets of paper with sarcasm and confessions from dating records — “making dinner naked,” “I have two kids” — covered the floor. Eight dancers wade through these pages and held them up as they circled the stage, sometimes pausing to share a flirty or longing dance, before being distracted by other love interests. (An actor went missing on Tuesday, which may help explain why some parts feel unfinished.) Ramírez delivered a similar message over and over. While it’s probably intentional, it’s a bit too much like a swipe.
Gibney Co
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