Schultz - "Recall" Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance completes their two-week season at The Joyce on Sunday, Sunday, May 26, and truthfully, this run must not be missed. In two programs, they present works by some esteemed dance makers in the business: Program A – Aszure Barton’s Untouched (2010), Robyn Mineko Williams’ Recall (2012), resident choreographer, Alejandro Cerrudo’s Pacopepepluto (2011) and Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s Too Beaucoup (2011). The shorter Program B was the showstopper offering up only two works, Ohad Nahari’s Three To Max (2011) and Mats Ek’s Casi-Casa (2009). By far what is most memorable is the company’s command of skill; the dancers are simply beautiful technicians. The women, for example, in fabulous long dresses with thigh-high splits against a backdrop of floor to ceiling red velvet curtains in Barton’s Untouched, seemed even more elegant when without effort they would take a leg through that split, from the floor to ceiling and back down. Ole! Or, for instance, the technical prowess of David Schultz, Kevin J. Shannon, Jessica Tong, Jacqueline Burnett, Pablo Piantino and Jason Hortin in Williams’ Recall. They manipulated, they punctuated, they tested gravity and they were refined in what seemed like rush hour—walking, walking and walking endlessly. Plus, dancing to songs that include “That’s Amore” by Dean Martin, dancers Johnny McMillan, Schultz and Piantino showed some muscle in Cerrudo’s Pacopepepluto. In the unison driven Too Beaucoup, the company offered a rendition of The Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance’s Carte Blache, also choreographed by Eyal and Behar, but both don’t really match up. There is a raw and grittiness expected from a presentation of any work by Naharin. Here, the technicians of Hubbard Street began to offer up this rawness just before the work ended when from two diagonal lines and one straight down center, a dancer from each line, commanding the audience’s attention did their own thing. There was, for example, a yoga pose, one leg lifted by one arm and held to the side for as long as the dancer wanted/needed to, a gymnastic tumble followed by a dangerous balance, or some purposefully awkward explosion where limbs would fly and then stillness quickly followed. Once each dancer, on their own timing finished, they would pause, move to the end of the line, and another three would take their place and so on, and so on. Rawness did however come through in the way each performer owned their role in Ek’s take on the family in Casi-Casa. Kudos and plaudits to Quinn B. Wharton for a stunning opening solo and to Jacqueline Burnett and Jonathan Fredrickson for a refreshingly genuine duet.
Hubbard Street Dance at The Joyce - www.joyce.org
Hubbard Street Dance at The Joyce - www.joyce.org
RSS Feed