New York Notebook

March 21, 2013

Stuffing Her Face—or Her Soul

Picky or piggish, the act of eating has yielded plenty of ingredients for Miami-based choreographer Rosie Herrera to stir into Dining Alone. Premiered at American Dance Festival in 2011, the piece has been reworked to bring to Baryshnikov Arts Center April 18–19.  The episodes here—with their obsessive and entrancing moves—turn hunger and satiety into metaphors: the mouth as porthole to the soul. As usual, Herrera juggles the wry (a female trio writhes at a table, getting pies in the face as Snow White warbles about her prince) and the wrenching (a woman follows a lonely path of plates laid out underfoot). To her banquet, Herrera invites both rascals and angels. See www.bacnyc.org. —Guillermo Perez

 

Heather Maloney (standing) and Liony Garcia. Photo by
Adam Reign, Courtesy Herrera.

Liberty for All

Known for dance theater works that veer between zany and sensual, athletic and absurdist, Jasmin Vardimon brings her newest creation, Freedom, to Peak Performances in Montclair, NJ. A Sadler’s Wells associate artist in London, the Israeli-born Vardimon gives her dancers enticing stage sets and technology to grapple with. Stylistically owing a debt to Pina Bausch, Freedom investigates “notions of what keeps our imagination free.” Alexander Kasser Theater, April 18–21. See www.peakperfs.org. —Wendy Perron

 

Esteban Fourmi and Julia Robert Pares in
Freedom. Photo by Alastair Muir, Courtesy Vardimon.

A New NDT

Nederlands Dans Theater brings three works by Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, NDT’s resident choreographers, to the David H. Koch Theater. While Lightfoot/León’s choreography bears many of Kylián’s hallmarks—fluid phrases punctuated with absurdist elements and quicksilver shifts in intensity—the repertoire represents a marked change in the company’s vision since Lightfoot became director in 2011. Good thing the supremely adventurous dancers are up to the task. On April 11 and 12, the company dances Sehnsucht (2009), whose set includes a rotating cube, and Schmetterling (2010), in which dancers disappear behind extended stage wings. Things get glitzier on April 10 when NDT shares the bill at the Joyce Theater gala with the likes of Wendy Whelan and Desmond Richardson. The company also performs at Carolina Performing Arts this month. www.davidhkochtheater.com. —Kina Poon

 

Silas Henriksen in
Sehnsucht. Rahi Rezvani, Courtesy NDT.