Get off that couch! Come celebrate Grupo Corpo at ‘Dance at the Music Center’

Dance · Reviews

Most of us can relate. Last Saturday night, April 5, as the clock ticked toward curtain time for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, I was wavering. A cloud of despair over the state of our nation weighed me down. The couch looked good. A glass of rose wine beckoned. Hell, I had half a bottle! I could put on pajamas. I could channel surf.

But somehow, instead, I surfed the Golden State Freeway and wrangled myself to the theater and boy was I glad I did.

The truly great Alvin Ailey dancers opened their second of two programs, ‘Program B,’ with a kicking work by Ronald K. Brown. One sleek minute of Brown’s “Grace,” dating from 1999, knocked the bad mood out of my soul. The hip-hop-meets-West-African-dance pageant, costumed in skin-baring red and white, was so vibrant and such a masterful showpiece of the dancers, set loose, that I promised myself to never give into that sloth! Here’s a video which falls very short of seeing this marvelous organism live in the theater. I experienced pure joy, stem to stern. Grinned like a fool through the entire thing.

Similar positivity arrived in “Many Angels,” a beautifully contained, if brief, outing for five dancers staged to the famous adagio of Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony by veteran Lar Lubovitch — a master of flowing and organic, yet highly formal choreography. A mini gem of self discipline that I truly wish all burgeoning choreographers would heed. (I’m talking to you Matthew Rushing, whose program opening “Sacred Songs” far exceeded its required length and had much to cull from Luvobitch’s careful curation of movement vocabulary.) The gentle shape-shifting of “Many Angels,” had Lubovitch milk (in a good way) every bar of the modulated music with visible and pleasing transitions between scrupulous sculptural clusters. Sage use of physical motifs, such as a big leg circle to the rear ending in a “C” curve behind the body, popped in in differing modes, such as on a dancer pivoting on one knee.

Many Angels
Choreographer: Lar Lubovitch
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Credit Photo: ©Paul Kolnik

I share the story of last Saturday night’s personal awakening for a reason. And that is to encourage you to come downtown to party with our South American friends, the marvelous dance troupe, Grupo Corpo, in their second-only visit to the Music Center. In the absence of our government treating our southern neighbors (or our northern, eastern or western ones, save Russia) with respect, it falls on us, the citizenry, to do so. And with this electric dance company, that should not be an onerous task.

The troupe is presenting two works at the Chandler:

Rodrigo Pederneiras21 (1992) is a ballet divided in three movements that weaves the company’s 22 dancers into rhythmic and timbral combinations around the number 21. That’s such a cool premise. Featuring a captivating score by Marco Antônio Guimarães, the choreography pulses with mathematical precision, progressing through a series of mesmerizing movements that blend the energy of Brazilian folk dances with the formality of classical ballet. The 40-minute piece, which amplifies the unique sounds emanating from Guimarães’ unusual instrumental creations, culminates in a dynamic and colorful finale, transporting audiences into a celebration of Brazilian cultural vibrancy.

Sounds fantastic. That should clear all cobwebs.

By contrast, Pederneiras’ other creation Gira (2017) draws its inspiration from the Afro-Brazilian religious rituals of Umbanda, one of the most prevalant sects in Brazil. His choreography reconstructs the powerful gestures of Umbanda and Candomblé ceremonies, capturing the raw and dizzying energy of these sacred rites. Set to 11 musical themes by the Brazilian fusion group Metá Metáthe spectacular Gira offers a primal, ritualistic energy that pulses through this mesmerizing 40-minute piece.

Again, wow, wow, and wow. We all need to be there to party with the Brazilians.


Grupo Corpo | Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center | May 2 4

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Andrea Miller’s ‘YEAR’ for A.I.M meets ‘The White Lotus’

Dance · Reviews

We’re not suggesting that choreographer Andrea Miller‘s “YEAR” (2024) for A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, is literally “The White Lotus” in dance. No way! But somehow, Miller’s ingenious, mesmerizing, tribal, thirty-minute ballet goes for the jugular in a way that syncs with the neurotic energy with which the HBO series wrapped up its Thailand adventure. The sexiness the choreographer deploys in a searing duet at “YEAR”‘s center oddly evokes Rick and Chelsea, the doomed lovers of “White Lotus,” who held the Internet in thrall the entirety of last week.

What was it that hearkened “White Lotus” for me? Like much in our maddeningly abstract art form, it’s a combination of form and feeling. The dance’s setting evoked a steamy Thai-jungle tone. Glistening white backboards had the dancers pop like tropical parrots in stunning painted unitards by Orly Anan Studio — wearable art on the A.I.M dancers’ bodacious bodies. Frederic Despierre’s thumping, claustrophobic sound score, a musical-mecanique, gave the proceedings an inescapably sweaty feel. There was a steamy, tribal, in-your-face aura, laced with tension, that, similar to the intertwined characters of “Lotus,” portended that, hey, this is not going to end well.

faith joy mondesire, YEAR, by andrea miller
photo chris strong

Miller’s uber-luscious way with female movement, matched by her equally slithery stuff for guys, found its match in Abraham’s latest crop of stellar, state-of-the-art dancers. “YEAR” opens with a lengthy solo by a stage dominatrix: Faith Joy Mondesire, a curvaceous goddess in her orange unitard, a color that has long since been the new Black. A no-nonsense woman in command of her every body part — hips, legs, thighs, feet — she also sports the undulating torso that is de rigeur for an Abraham dancer. Planting herself at stage center with a deep plunge into a wide second position — it’s ouchy even thinking about bending that far — in later versions of the pose, she pushes one bare foot into a forced arch curving her torso far over it, stretching two arms asymmetrically. Her climb onto tippy-toe engenders a body wave, and her arms go scarecrow. However the arms zig-or-zag, here’s a dance who makes sense of what her choreographer asks of her. Essentially, with her crooked shapes, she’s the gap-toothed Chelsea of “Lotus”; she’s off kilter, but it’s real and it’s good. When a pack of lady dancers join in, kind of bourreeing on demi-pointe behind her, they syncopate little beats in Despierre’s music with hiccups and bumps.

The legs swing high; the spins are multiple; the backbones, as mentioned, are fluid. Two dancers enter the stage gingerly; they’re like a vaudeville team teasing the audience. The tippytoe walks, the tree branch arms, the splayed hands. Wow, who are these people? Miller builds and builds this hypnotic madness, so much that I did feel (in the two viewings I had) she had a difficult time getting out of it, but I didn’t mind that either. The denouement seemed to last ten minutes. In it, dancers revisit that second-position stance and kick with one foot after another, banging foot-to-the calf of the other leg. Super disturbing, a kind of self flagellation. Miller had a wonderful explanation behind her work, a lot about information and data as “logic becomes our entry point in to every space,” thus spurring her to make a dance about “how we as humans put stock into body language.” Well, I certainly got the body language part!

amari frazier, YEAR, by andrea miller
photo chris strong

The program also includes a jewel of a new work by Kyle Abraham, a yummy quartet called “2 x 4,” set to a tremulous duet of bass saxophones by composer Shelley Washington. Fabulous intersecting costumes by Reid Bartelme & Harriet Jung added to the visual pleasure and good lord what a gorgeous backdrop by painter Devin B. Johnson, which Abraham lighting design stalwart Dan Scully lit like butter. Abraham’s abilities in the dance-sculpting of space grows as he goes, and this time, he works at an admirably slow-to-medium tempo. Which is hard(er). It was choreographer David Rousseve who raved to me after the show that Kyle’s incursions (if you will!) into the classical ballet world are boomeranging beautifully into his works for his contemporary troupe. I think David got that right.


Dance critic Debra Levine is founder/editor/publisher of arts●meme.

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Music
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Dance
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Dance
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Film · Reviews
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Dance
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Film · Music
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Film
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