Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance in repertory season at NYU Tisch

Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance
(photo courtesy of CLD)

Ramona Kelley and Daniel Matei in Summer Evening
(photo: Charles Roussel)

Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance
June 27-28
Jack Crystal Theater
NYU Tisch School of the Arts

The new, two-evening season of Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance presents four works from repertory and live music played on the kora, a stringed instrument from West Africa. That traditional music is lovingly rendered by Kane Mathis, a Brooklyn-based performer and composer who has long studied with master musicians of The Gambia.

When Mathis, a white man, brought out a kora for an interlude in the midst of a program of contemporary ballet, it took me a moment to grasp the meaning of this juxtaposition. Then Matthis began to pluck the strings, with deep concentration and delicate touch and timing. Tinkling sounds brushed past our ears like cool, sweet breezes. Lavagnino included him, clearly, because his dedication to traditions--he also learned the oud from master teachers--parallels her own.

I doubt you'll ever find disruptive, radical experimentation at a Lavagnino show. She's old school with a distinct reverence not only for classical ballet--her works often engage pointe work and fluid lifts,  emphasize well-sculpted, grounded structure and line--but also classic modern dance with its concern for human interest. If you crave dance theater with musicality, romance, universal themes and relateable emotions, you'll be comfortable with Lavagnino.

The loveliest work on hand this season might be RU (2014), which takes inspiration from an autobiographical novel by Canadian writer Kim Thúy, a Vietnamese refugee. It largely skirts specifics to embrace sensuous gesture, partner interaction and atmosphere, though it might be a bit jarring--again, these juxtapositions--to see predominantly white dancers wafting about in áo dài tunics and trousers. But, beyond that, Lavagnino captures the gentleness and flow implied by the work's title ("lullaby" or "stream"). Dancers here are Chad Balen, Jesse Campbell, Dervla Carey-Jones, Justin Faircloth, Gwendolyn Gussman, Corinne Hart, Emma Pajewski, Lila Simmons and Claire Westby. Also, look for Ramona Kelley's snappy performance with Daniel Mantei sweeping her off her feet in Summer Evening (2017), set to the Janis Joplin’s version of "Summertime." Kelley, who has danced with Twyla Tharp and Sidra Bell, has got spunk of the "Mary Richards" variety and delivers energy to the work.

Costume design: Christopher Metzger
Lighting design: Kathy Kaufmann

Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance concludes tonight with a performance at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Jack Crystal Theater
NYU Tisch School of the Arts
111 Second Avenue, Manhattan

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Three dancemakers say, Music is our muse!

Laura Mead and Justin Flores
Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance

Of the three artists contributing work to last evening's opening of Musa! A Dance Festival, Cherylyn Lavagnino did the most to convince me of her passion for music. For both of her works, live musicians perched downstage, so close to their audience--almost in the laps of those of us in the first few rows on one side--that we could catch each one's momentary sideways glance or intake of breath and gathering of energy. The musician's bodies, alive to the wonderful music as they channeled it, formed an integral, conscious part of our experience of each work. How perfect a way to elevate music as the choreographer's Muse, underscoring the entire mission of this series at Baruch Performing Arts Center which runs through June 22.

Lavagnino's Compadre duet--set to an Astor Piazzola tango, performed with easygoing charm by JP Jofre on bandoneon and Evelyn Ulex on piano--serves contemporary ballet with nuevo tango flavor and snap. Or, maybe it's the reverse. When Justin Flores takes Ramona Kelley to the air in various lifts and tangles, it's hard to tell where one dance technique ends and the other begins. They are, in a way, made for each other. Watch for Kelley again in Lavagnino's sweeping, Schubert-powered ensemble work Treize en Jeu, where this dancer combines radiant self-possession with irrepressible joy as one of the stylishly strutting ladies who, with minimal but telling gestures, suggest centuries of yore and acknowledge how glamorous they are in our eyes. Do try to attend one of the show with live music performed by Jane Chung (violin), Sara Biber (cello) and Andrea Lam (piano).

Schubert also seems to have Lavagnino, through the capable men of her company, musing on the proper way to get things done. Lifts, catches, turns: If the job in question is complex and even risky, watch those assured hands go to work--firm and accurate. It's an education! The appealing qualities on display in each case, do they necessarily belong to one specified gender or another? Who cares?

Last evening's program also included works by Lavagnino's partners in Musa!--Dušan Týnek and Zvi Gotheiner, performed by each of their enjoyable troupes. These and other pieces will appear, in various configurations, over the course of the festival. See here for complete schedule and programming details. For ticket information, click here.

Baruch Performing Arts Center
Baruch College (CUNY)
55 Lexington Avenue (25th Street entrance), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Lavagnino's romance

Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance presents three dances by the richly talented Lavagnino this week in its DANCE: Access program at Danspace Project. It's a 90-minute evening filled with some of the loveliest choreography and performing I've seen this season.

Ménage, a serene and sensual nocturne from 2009, establishes the Lavagnino look: dancers with ravishing, expressive arms and torsos firmly anchored below, the women in pointes that, deployed sparingly, turn them into classical sheroes rather than classical sprites. Lavagnino shows us women's strength even in the midst of beautiful, musical imagery and romantic rapture. Partnering ideas run to the eccentric, resembling nothing you've seen before, except, perhaps, a forest's tangle of fallen limbs. Bit by bit, tints and washes of character and story flow through the space--not so distinct as to be distracting, just romantic impressions. But we meet these impressions with a rush of human feeling equal to their own. The choreographer and performers (coached in acting by Kay Cummings) build up this sensation of individual lives and narratives with fine attention to detail and remarkable technique. Somehow, they manage to transform a performance space into a THEATER, with all the heightened magic implied, and chief among them in this witchery is Laura Mead.

The recent Deax en Peu duet finds an attentive Joshua Palmer under the sway of a noirish glamour puss (Selina Chau) whose clockwork-like approach to the musical cues (Schubert's Andante con moto, Trio in E Flat Major) gives this piece real bite. I hope I was reading something of Chau's character, not the dancer herself, in her sealed-off manner, because I thought the duet was missing the chemistry that's so clear in most of the interactions in Ménage. But that might be a deliberate move. Matters end with Palmer (wonderful in all of Lavagnino's work as elsewhere) kneeling close by as Chau settles into her final preening pose. He turns his head slightly to cast a dazed glance in a different direction, as if thinking, "What was THAT all about?"


ABOVE: Trailer for Ménage

BELOW: Duet from Triptych performed by Laura Mead and Justin Flores


In accord with the scrumptious live music and countertenor singing in Triptych, the world premiere, Lavagnino's dancers breathe life and authenticity into every movement and interaction. The work's choral work, costuming and decor (the last, by artist Betsy Weis, evoking hazy, rural graces) seem, to me, a subtle homage to the ancestral era of modern dance. I think you will find this new work intriguing and satisfying.

With dancing by Sarah Bek, Michael G. Cameron, Selina Chau,  Justin Flores, Giovanna Gamna, Christine McMillan, Laura Mead, Joshua Palmer, Samuel Swanton, Claire Westby and Eric Williams

Live musical ensemble for Triptych includes Jane Chung (baroque violin), Kenneth Hamrick (musical director; organ, harpsicord), Paula Rand (baroque bassoon), Motomi Igarashi-de Jong (viola da gamba), Andrew Trombley (basse de violon) Eric S. Brenner (counter tenor) and Nicholas Tamagna (counter tenor)

Lighting by Kathy Kauffman

Lavagnino's show continues tonight and Saturday at 8pm. For information, click here. Purchase tickets here or by calling 866-811-4111. Bring your hand fan. In hot weather, it can get slightly steamy inside St. Marks.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church
131 East 10th Street (2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)