Rosie Herrera work featured in Limón season at The Joyce

Limón Dance Company performs The Unsung
(photo: Beatriz Schiller)

Amid the historic repertory of José Limón--Missa Brevis, premiered in 1958, and The Unsung, from 1971--Limón Dance Company has added an edgy splash of color and razzledazz to Program A of its new season at The Joyce Theater. It's the New York premiere of Querida Herida (2017), a women's trio by Rosie Herrera, a Miami-based, Cuban-American choreographer. Its clever title translates as dear (or beloved) wound, and its mischief stands out in a program that otherwise underscores the Mexico-born José Limón's earnest focus on the heroism embedded in our common humanity.

For instance, in The Unsung's signature opening ensemble, Limón envisioned a ceremony of beautiful men, each dancer named for an indigenous warrior chief--Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Tecumseh and so forth--something that might raise eyebrows if created today, say, by a white dancemaker. The gorgeousness of the group's work, though, is unquestionable. The patterns of their communal dancing are rich in rigorous geometric structure, and their well-ordered footfalls provide the only music, a bracing percussion reminiscent of Native American drumming.

Missa Brevis--set to Zoltán Kodály's Missa Brevis in Tempore Belli--salutes the endurance of survivors of war-torn Poland and what Limón called their "heroic serenity." He said, "I'm going to do a dance about it--in the ruins I found a dance." He forged a prayerful congregation who become their prayers, whose bodies transform into rung church bells. Made by artistic director and former Limón dancer Colin Connor, The Body is a House without Walls (2017), with its atmosphere of heroic grief and release, fits well with Limón modern dance aesthetics while lacking the boldface visual clarity that makes Limón's craft still affecting even as contemporary dance speaks to us in newer ways.

Which brings me around to Herrera and her beloved--artfully concealed, artfully revealed--wounds. How to take a work that careens between being barely there and over-the-top? Where two women cling to each other, dancing slow drags to Cuban music as if half-asleep, periodically unzipping parts of their skintight, midnight-black gowns as if slicing satiny, raspberry-red gashes into each other's flesh? Where, one minute, there's fake nudity (a dancer stripped down to a pale-colored leotard), and another, the women suddenly cavort in gleaming, gold-spangled party dresses? Where the lovers grapple and shove, leaving one vanquished and abandoned? Where an arterial ribbon of red spans the stage like a guide wire as a third dancer crosses that space in increasingly whimsical ways? How to take a work that makes some viewers chuckle at absurdity while others cringe at violence? And where some might very well do both at the same time? Where can we locate Herrera's fugitive tone and her intent?

Like the bright, picturesque wounds its dancers inflict upon each other, Querida Herida ruptures the sobriety and solemnity of Program A. Is this a good thing? Perhaps. Is it a different take on life and humanity from a Latinx artist of a new generation, new outlook? Something to ponder. Audiences who attend Program B and C--which, respectively, introduce New York premieres by Adam Barruch and Yin Yue--will get to ponder how these young choreographers affect the overall balance and alchemy of the Limón season.

Limón Dance Company: Jacqueline Buines, Terrence D. M. Diable, Angela Falk, Tanner Myles Huseman, David Glista, Logan Frances Kruger, Alex McBride, Brenna Monroe-Cook, Jesse Obremski, Frances Samson, Savannah Spratt, Mark Willis; apprentices Deepa Liegel and Malik Williams

Guest dancers: Carolina Avendano,Terry Springer, Kristen Foote and Julian Nichols

Limón Dance Company continues through Sunday, May 13 on the following schedule:

PROGRAM A:
Thursday at 8pm
The Unsung (José Limón)
The Body Is a House Without Walls (Colin Connor)
Querida Herida (Rosie Herrera)
Missa Brevis (José Limón)

PROGRAM B:

Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 2pm (family matinee)
The Unsung (José Limón)
The Body Is a House Without Walls (Colin Connor)
Conjurations (Adam Barruch)
Missa Brevis (José Limón)

PROGRAM C:

Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm
The Unsung (José Limón)
The Body Is a House Without Walls (Colin Connor)
No Room For Wandering (Yin Yue)
Missa Brevis (José Limón)

For information and tickets, click here.

The Joyce Theater
175 Eight Avenue (corner of 19th Street), Manhattan
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Limón Dance Foundation on the passing of Alan Danielson

Alan Danielson
1954-2014

The José Limón Dance Foundation sadly announces the sudden passing of Alan Danielson on February 12, 2014.

A beloved teacher, mentor, colleague and friend, he will be greatly missed by all.

Executive Director, Juan Jose Escalante, says "Yesterday we lost a dear friend and an amazing human being.

Already an accomplished musician, Alan discovered dance at age 22 and subsequently moved to New York to study with Ruth Currier, who performed in the Limón Dance Company for many years and became the Company Director after José Limón’s death. Ten years later he was approached by the Director of the Limón Institute, Norton Owen, to help found the Limón School. Under Alan’s guidance, the Professional Studies Program was created 2001, which is an intensive nine-month program in the Limón technique and repertory that continues today.

Alan was an internationally acclaimed choreographer and master teacher, committed to the contemporary relevance of the Humphrey/Limón movement principles and philosophy. He will be greatly missed at the Limón School, based at Peridance Capezio Center in New York. In addition, Alan was on faculty at New York University and the Alvin Ailey American Dancer Center, and taught extensively in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, and Central America.

His impact on the thousands of students he reached throughout his career is immeasurable and has left us with an incredible legacy of exceptional dancers and teachers. He was asked once“What would you like to offer young dancers today?” His response was extraordinary: “I would like to share my love for movement – what it feels like and what it projects to those who are watching. I would like to share my joy in working with music and creating with other dancers. I’d like to show them how dance is life, and how it communicates our existence as human beings."

Rest in peace dear friend – we will love you and miss you forever!"

Limón Dance Company at the Joyce

Are you seeing the Limón Dance Company at the Joyce this week? Here's my my review for Dance Magazine.

Student designer wins Limón competition

Sheryl Liu (scenic design, UC Irvine) has been selected to create the new sets and costumes for the Limón Dance Company’s upcoming revival of Limón’s 1956 masterwork The Emperor Jones, scheduled to premiere April 29 in Culiacan, Mexico, birthplace of Limón, followed by a tour of Mexico and presentation during the Company’s June 7-12 New York season at the John Jay Theater.

The Competition was sponsored by the Limón Dance Company and the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces for the purpose of bringing a fresh point of view to this acknowledged dance classic, on the occasion of its first restaging by the Company in 25 years. An invitation was extended to a select group of visual arts institutions in Mexico, Canada, and across the US , who invited a small group of their most talented students to apply. The Company received applications from young designers around the country, including Tennessee, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and 10 finalists were chosen.

Sheryl Liu was selected by the panel of judges that consisted of Carla Maxwell, Artistic Director of the Limón Dance Company; Roxane D’Orleans Juste, Company Associate Artistic Director; lighting designer Carol Mullins, and Clay Taliaferro, who learned the work directly from José Limón, danced the leading role, and will reconstruct and direct the revival.

SHERYL LIU is a third year scenic design student at UCIrvine. Her assisting credits include working in Alexander Dodge’s studio during the summer of 2009 on projects at the Old Globe, the Lansburgh, and the Roundabout Theater Company. Last summer she assisted Christopher Acebo at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her designs for Salome and La bohème have been selected to be part of EMERGE: 2011 at the Prague Quadrennial, the world’s top international stage design exhibition. Design credits at UCIrvine include The Wild Party, The Laramie Project, Little Women, Cyrano de Bergerac, Into the Woods, and The Crucible.

THE EMPEROR JONES
Premiered July 12, 1956 at the Empire State Festival, Ellenville, New York
Choreography: José Limón
Commissioned Score: Heitor Villa-Lobos
Reconstructed and Directed by Clay Taliaferro

In the classic Eugene O’Neill play, Jones, a fugitive from a chain gang, sets himself up as emperor of an island domain. He becomes a tyrant, and his mistreatment of his subjects causes them to rebel, hunt him down, and bring him to an ignominious end. The dance makes no attempt to adhere to the play’s sequence, but rather seeks to give it another dimension. The various episodes which concern Jones’ encounter with visions and hallucinations encompassing his own personal, and later, his racial memories, are juxtaposed within the necessarily brief duration of a dance.

For further information on the Limón Dance Company and its upcoming programs, click here.