Malpaso Dance Company: Winter 2025 Season

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The Cuban-based Malpaso Dance Company displayed expressive dancing and acting in four works at The Joyce Theater in Chelsea.  The troupe, directed by co-founders Fernando Sáez, Osnel Delgado and Daileidys Carrazana, has returned to New York, for the tenth time with some ease after having to deal with troublesome visa issues in 2022.

The program opened with a U.S. premiere, a duet, “Ara,” danced by Grettel Morejón and Osnel Delgado (who also was the choreographer) to a lushly sentimental score by Aldo López-Gavilán.  The two, framed by Guido Gali’s dramatically fuzzy lighting, began to sway, the duet becoming a beautifully danced portrait of two lovers who cannot fuse their lives despite their obvious attraction to each other.  They alternated between daring partnering and solos that orbited about each other, sometimes passing an invisible something between them. This was definitely not Romeo and Juliet.

“Retrato de Familia (Family Portrait),” also a U.S. premiere, came next.  Choreographed by Esteban Aguilar, “Retrato” gradually brought its full-company cast together after swift solos and duets that established individual relationships.  One dancer dragged his body across the stage in an expression of despair.

Gali’s lighting kept the audience’s focus on the parade of characters who finally coalesced into a teasing group acting up for the unseen photographer.  The variations on street wear designed by Aguilar and Gali helped ground the characters.

“Vertigo” completed the first part of the program.  After what amounted to an overture, a dancer in pink—Daileidys Carrazana—walked through the first row of the auditorium and onto the stage greeted by “Vertigo’s” main feature, a fascinating bit of lighting trickery.  The dancers held strings that terminated in lanterns which floated like kites.  Holding the strings also tethered the dancers limiting Susana Pous’ choreographic choices, set to a juicy score by Alexander Balanescu and Boris Kovac.

Respected dancemaker Aszure Barton provided “Indomitable Waltz” choreographed to music by Balanescu, Michael Nyman and Nils Frahm. Barton.  Although slightly brighter in mood than the first three works, “Waltz” just coasted along showing off its eight dancers agile leg movements and skittering steps that led to light jumps.  It wound down suddenly with one dancer, Laura Rodriguez, in a quietly wandering solo ending with a tiny hand gesture.

This may not have been a typical program for the Malpaso Dance Company, but the troupe seems to lean towards the darker parts of life.  As moving as each of the works are, they all painted a gloomy view.  The movement style was an amalgam of ballet and the plasticity of good old-fashioned modern dance: lots of extensions, falls, turned-in legs and twisty partnering.

Even the musical scores—superbly performed by brothers Aldo López-Gavilán (piano), Ilmar Gavilán (violin) and the Alma String Quartet—were weighty, but beautiful despite the occasional burst of jaunty Latin rhythms.

The costumes throughout eschewed glamour, replacing splendor with simple lines and imaginative variations on street clothes and dance gear.

In the last analysis, it was the finely tuned dancing that carried the evening.  Always agile and expressive, these twelve filled the stage, often seeming to be scores of dancers.

Let’s hope that some optimism will creep into the repertory in future visits.

Malpaso Dance Company (through January 26, 2025)

The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-242-0800 or visit http://www.Joyce.org

Running time:  one hour and 45 minutes including one intermission