DanceGalaxy
Peter Norton Symphony Space
June 25, 2002

I'm excited to tell you about the DanceGalaxy presentation I saw, but where to begin? The dancers? the repertory? the company itself? There were things I liked and things I disliked. But the things I disliked, well, it's the kind of armchair quarterbacking that's engendered by seeing something with such integrity and substance that one wishes one had done it oneself. And of course that being the case, there are always a few things one would have done differently.

DanceGalaxy, or Ballet NY as they’re now called, was founded by Judith Fugate, now retired from New York City Ballet, and her husband Medhi Bahiri who's had affiliations with Bejart's Ballet of the 20th Century, Basel Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Ballet West.

The mission of their company seems to be four-fold:

1) Keep it small and affordable. Cultivate audiences for dance where they cannot afford to bring in the big companies.

2) Keep it small and fun. Dancers these days don't have enough fun with what they're doing and we all know that a performance is enhanced when the dancer is enjoying the work.

3) Capitalize on the rich artistry that mature performers have to offer. Did I mention keep it small? This is so all these talented performers get the chance to do meaty roles and no one is relegated to the back of a corps.

4) The choreography should be worthy of the performers: innovative, varied, substantial.

First on the program was William Forsythe's Artifact II. While I am a Forsythe fan, I'm not sure this is one of his stronger works, but it was ably danced by the Marcella Figueroa, Bonnie Pickard, Thaddeus Davis, and Erik Wagner. They all deserve special mention for their commited and skillful performances.

Looking back on this work, however, I think the things that detracted from its impact did not actually include the choreography. It was that the costumes looked tired, the live solo violin accompaniment lacked tone (was it the instrument, the musician or the sound system?), and the numerous lighting cues seemed badly called, either leaving the dancers in the dark for too long or putting them there too soon.

Winter Was Hard, a world premiere by Sarah Slipper, grabbed us with an opening section that struck me as a slow march toward a hellmouth. A thin slit in the upstage curtain revealed a vivid red cyclorama, there were other accents of red lighting, fog, and a sad, labored, gradual progression toward the upstage opening. Did they really progress toward the red slit? Or was it like a mime's walk which only appears to travel?

The body of the work which followed was not as arresting but solid nonetheless and it continued to demonstrate Slipper's gift for subtle-but-ingenious partnering. Notes on the work mention the sense of renewal brought on by spring, but I just didn't see it. I saw it more as being about the best qualities of relationships between women and men: the mutual support, the power a woman has to nurture her man and manipulate him, in the most positive fashion, to be his best. On the other hand, my female companion at this performance was not similarly riveted, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to women after all.

Thaddeus Davis danced in his own work, Once before, Twice after, another world premiere and also a very auspicious start for this fledgling choreographer. He was re-joined by Pickard and Wagner, and also the excellent Tanya Wideman Davis who shone here as well as in Winter Was Hard. This was a knockout cast that really brings some guts to contemporary ballet.

I found the work to be rather Forsythian in it's break-neck tempo and innovative, demanding partnering. The unexpected lines he drew out of the dancers were striking, but while all this was reminiscent of the best aspects of Forsythe, it avoided being derivitive. Davis's work is very much his own and the dynamicism of his compositions is engaging to watch. This is the kind of stuff that even sports fans, who pooh-pooh dance, would enjoy watching.

His penultimate movement posits the dancers in four chairs across the back of the stage. From these starting points the dancers get up, in various combinations, and dance what struck me as some kind of urgent social ritual, the kind one might find in the pounding bass ambience of a hip club during the wee hours.

As much as I enjoyed this section, I appreciated his overall structure even more. He didn't end on this high note, rather he tacked on a small ellipsis of a short male duet followed by a short female duet. These duets were so succinct and rich in subtext that it made an intriguing postscript, and overall a much more powerful ending than simply closing on the finale-esque section with the chairs. Let's hope this is just the beginning of more such work from Mr. Davis.

The closing piece on the program was Stanton Welch's Orange set to Vivaldi. This was an accomplished contemporary ballet with good musicality and moments of wit, though were I programming the show I think I would have closed with Once before, Twice after. I don't say this to diminish the quality of Stanton's work, but it definitely fell more in the classical realm and therefore held fewer surprises.

Of special note in this piece, however, was Christina Fagundes who gave an expansive, joyous performance, so impassioned it was hard to take one's eyes from her.

If this solid little company comes to a theatre near you, they're definitely worth checking out.

Learn more about DanceGalaxy, or “Ballet NY” as they’re now called, at their Web site.