Fall for Dance at NY City Center

So, back when I last posted in August, I had neglected to think about how consuming school would become. A month and a half later, I'm definitely enjoying this whole grad school thing, but it sure doesn't leave room for much else. I have, however, carved out time to escape to New York for some shows. So here's some catch up (I'll post some thoughts on Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company soon, and I'm also probably going to see San Francisco Ballet this weekend).

At the end of September I caught one of the Fall For Dance programs at New York City Center. Fall For Dance started three years ago at City Center, and it has since become a very popular annual tradition: all tickets to the two-week festival of dance are only $10, major companies are presented with smaller companies together on wonderfully diverse mixed bills, and audiences get an incredible sample of dance big and small - all for $10. It tends to sell out completely within days of going on sale, and the concept has proved so popular too that California version appeared last year.

The program on September 21 included Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Oregon Ballet Theatre in an excerpt from Christopher Wheeldon's Rush, Indian classical dancer Madhavi Mugdal, solo dance artist Sheron Wray, and the men of Hofesh Schechter Company from the UK in an excerpt from their piece Uprising. The excerpts nature of the program made it a mixed bag overall, but a few pieces definitely stood out for me, making me sit a little forward in my chair. And I'm glad that those sit-up-and-notice pieces were dances and styles that were entirely new to me - isn't that the point of Fall For Dance, to discover something new at the low price point they are offering?

Madhavi Mugdal, performing Odissi:PRAVAHA, was one of my favorite dancers on the program. An Indian classical dancer, she was simply brilliant in the poetry and musicality that she gave to her rhythmic dancing. Every small movement of her arm, tap of her foot, change of her head position was articulated with such control, nuance and absolute clarity. She was joined by her niece Arushi Mudgal, pictured here on the left, for the last portion of the dance.

I also loved Hofesh Schecter Company Company, a contemporary dance company from the UK. The company's men did excerpts from Uprising - they were just excerpts but the performance felt like the most complete work on the program. It was incredibly exciting, veering back and forth between raw, aggressive energy and surprising lyricism. At the beginning of the dance, bright strip lights glared from the back of the stage and the group of dancers stomped to the front of the stage. Suddenly they stopped and snapped in a soft, elegant ballet pose. This contrast is revisited throughout the dance as the men roll around, fight with each other, jump, then stop to flow quietly around the stage. The rawness of their dancing and their individual yet cohesive ways of moving was exhilarating.

The disappointments on the program were more due to the excerpted nature of the works than any actual flaws: Ballets Jazz de Montreal gave a spirited but random bit from one of their repertoire, while Chris Wheeldon's central pas de deux from Rush looked flat, somber and generic without the rest of the ballet to surround it, even as whole heartedly as Oregon Ballet Theatre's two dancers danced it. Sheron Wray's piece was a solo that lasted less than 3 minutes - it was gone before I even noticed that it had begun.

Part of the fun in Fall For Dance was the energy coming from the audience. Everyone seemed so excited to be there, and the dancers too fed off of the energy in the house. I loved it for the opportunity to see unusual pieces: with such limited time available to me I tend to go for ballet, musicals and the like - when I have to pick and choose it is usually it's the "big" stuff that wins out. A festival like this gives me the opportunity to try out new things all at once, and all within two hours. A good thing, I'd say.

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New York City Center's main auditorium has terrible sightlines from virtually every part of the house. In the rear mezzanine, where most of the affordable seats are, the height between rows isn't sufficient, so heads get in the way. And from the rear mezzanine, the front of the mezzanine cuts off the front lip of the stage. You can barely see the floor and the dancer's feet - this is a huge problem for dance, especially since so much dance is presented at City Center. In the orchestra, sightlines are better, but again there isn't much of a rake so if you get stuck behind a tall person, you might have a pretty uncomfortable performance. The best compromise is to sit in the last row of the any given section, best in the rear mezzanine. There you can fold the chair back and sit higher, avoiding all the heads in front of you. The upcoming planned renovation is supposed to fix some of these problems, but in the immediate future, plan carefully when selecting seats for ABT, San Francisco Ballet and Miami City Ballet.