Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet

("frame of view", choreographed by Didy Veldman. Photo: Julietta Certantes)

Sun, Jan 18 - Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet was a great company to see. The dancers are fantastic, and the work was all at least interesting and fun to watch. Everything at their Winter 2009 program was executed with such style and commitment that I could barely help but stay engaged. Their pieces are very theatrical, often involving some scenery and/or complex lighting. Also, Cedar Lake's space in Chelsea is a wonderfully sleek and comfortable place to watch dance – certainly not always a given when going to see contemporary dance. (And, also, anything could be counted as more interesting than the New York City Ballet debacle that I witnessed earlier in the afternoon…)

My favorite piece was the last one: Didy Veldman's frame of view. The work was performed on a set composed of standalone doors, black-lit thin rods formed the frame of a room, and glow tape on the floor marked the room's boundaries. Short vignettes were used to form the whole of the piece, each showing some aspect of being inside or outside of a nameless room: in one, a girl is annoyed – but secretly thrilled – by several men who desperately bang on her door for her attention. They give up and leave; she grandly throws open her door and is crestfallen to find that they have gone. Another vignette shows a hilarious slow-motion fight between two people, one of whom has forced his way in through the door. The sections were each very human, and showed a lot of character without every saying any words.

Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, the program's second work, was interesting more for the contemporary stylishness of its performance than for choreography itself. The stage was set up with a dozen or so raised stage lights arranged in a semi-circle; when they were turned on, the stage got an industrial glow, the dancers lit as silhouettes. The lighting was dazzling, though I found myself counting down towards the piece's titular ten duets. memory/measure was the first piece, a very short work danced with severe lighting from above and stark classical technique. I don't remember a whole lot about the choreography other than lots of twitching movements.