White Wave: 2024 SoloDuo Dance Festival

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[avatar user=”Joel Benjamin” size=”96″ align=”left”] Joel Benjamin, Critic[/avatar]

Sometimes I wish that Doris Humphrey’s magnum opus The Art of Making Dances (1959) were required reading for all aspiring choreographers, whether they use modern, balletic or ethnic techniques.  Nine of the ten short works presented at the White Wavel’s 8^th Annual SoloDuo Dance Festival at Dixon Place could have used her keen insight.

Several themes emerged: In this choreographic microcosm no one is happy, content or joyful; all relationships are depressing and solved by acrobatic wrestling or angular gestures; there is no such thing as a happy relationship, some of which here ended in actual loud screams; costuming was minimal but suggestive enough, except for one work “Plastic” where garish costumes and an even more garish performance were the point of the work.

Okay, let’s start with Amos Pinhasi’s “Plastic,” a bizarre drag show performed by Pinhasi who was older than all the other performers.  He entered wearing a crackly robe of plastic, then lifted yet more plastic shower curtains from the floor to form a cape whereupon he lip-synched to Judy Garland singing Cole Porter’s “I Happen to Like New York”!  Less a dance than an ill-performed mime, it was self-indulgence personified, more appropriate as party entertainment.

Here are thumbnail descriptions of the other works on this well-meaning program.

The Mo.vement presented “Introspection,” a dysfunctional relationship danced by Jade Falkenberg and Grace Hilarides. The two danced separately, getting together only to try to topple each other.  The pair were dedicated performers dancing to atmospheric music by Nebulo and ANOHNI.

Company/E provided Anastasiia Kharchenko’s ”Where Do We Go?” performed by Ryan Carlough and Ja’Myra LaSalle who used each other roughly, even sitting atop one another.

Muyu Ruba/ARTBAO performed Ruba’s “The Wonder World” to music by Carlos Johns.  Ruba entered crawling wearing identical masks on the front and back of her head giving her a weird, otherworldly quality.  She struggled and strove to stand.  The work ended the same way as it began, with Ruba in a curled up position. Ruba made the most of her slow movements.

Bridget Ryan’s “Silent Screams,” danced by her and Arianna Kozloski was performed to a somber song by Billie Eilish. The two had an approach/avoidance relationship expressed in angular tangling ending with a loud scream as the lights faded.

“Not My Responsibility” was the contribution of Contemporary Dance Choreography Festival, a work choreographed to another Billie Eilish number danced by an expansive Sidney Choothesa.   McClaine Timmerman’s choreography included some telling gestures that implied both mourning over a body and body shaming.

“Quintessential Colors” by Tara Iacobucci was set to an odd version of “Liebestraum” and danced by Liana Weisbord who appeared to be troubled by some unseen issue.  She reminded me as she danced Iacobucci’s old-school steps of a young Jean Erdman.

“First Steps” was danced by Kaja Chow and Andres Jimenez of Christa Smutek/Smutek Dance.  Smutek’s steps were, by the standards of this program, the most expressive, actually charting a relationship.

A very young-looking Santiago Rivera danced his own “The Misery of Moonlight” to his own composition “the thoughts I have at a bus stop…” plus some whispers of Brahm’s “Lullaby.”  He was meditative and outgoing at the same time in a work that was a naive jumble of emotions that greatly needed editing as did his dancing.

The host company, WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company ended the short, well-run program with the longest work, the three-part “Eternal NOW.”  It also had the most complex costumes, geometrically shaped and brightly-colored two-part outfits designed by Sarah Cubbage.

Putting her seven dancers through their modern dance paces, Kim displayed skill at handling the cast, pitting soloist against groups and each other as they moved to an alternately slow and fast score by Marco Cappelli.   She is someone the other other dancemakers on this lineup could look up to.

This SoloDuo Dance Festival is a valuable workshop for young choreographers to present their works to a perceptive, but warmly receptive audience.

White Wave: 8^th Annual SoloDuo Dance Festival (February 8-9, 2024)

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.whitewavedance.org

Running time:  one hour and 15 minutes without an intermission