The New York City Center was packed for the annual Fall for Dance Festival, and rightly so, the crowd was ready to see serious skill. There were four very, very different performances that were put on. They ranged from traditional ballet to passionate reflections on natural disaster. I found some of them better than others.
The first of the bunch was the traditional ballet courtesy of Ballet West. There were plenty of girls who began the dance and exhibited great skill in the delicate art of ballet. The bodies of the women seemed to have poles in them, the ‘lines’ that the dancers made with their bodies were straight and rather impressive. It seemed as though the dancer’s arms and legs were connected and straight as an arrow. The muscles of the women were defined through their tights showing years of punishment to their bodies. It is necessary to be strong though, without strength the dancers would physically not be able to perform. The strongest of the group was the male dancer though, his name being Rex Tilton.
Courtesy of the NYC Center
He jumped, and I would have swore that gravity was turned down. The man was airborne for much longer than any average man can be. It was simply awesome to watch him fly around the stage. The other dancers that surrounded the duo were good, but they seemed like a simple background to the action of the man and his woman. They moved less and in different ways than the couple, which distanced them from the passion. Passion was a recurring theme in the whole festival for it has endless possibilities. The passion of the festival was not limited to just love though; you can be passionate about shoes too. Right?
The second dance was just that, the struggle of answering, what may be, the most impossible question of a young lady’s life. The question being, ‘should I get those shoes or not?’ The dance was full of jazz and blues, almost as if to say ‘if I don’t get the shoes, then I will be a sad excuse for a person.’ The kicker is that the shoes didn’t even fit her, she just liked them and of course the salesman is going to push to woman to buy them. Those salesmen are the worst, aren’t they? The whole second performance just seemed like real life and it was executed great, the crowd loved it. The third performance was a little less loved though.
The third act began quiet… too quiet. (Sorry I always wanted to say that.) During the quietness, the wonderful sound of sneezes, coughs, and cell phones were echoed throughout the near perfect acoustics of the NYC Center. It detracted from the performance, as the feeling of being transported to a place of rich culture and emotion was lost. Hearty sneezes do tend to have that effect of killing seriousness, especially when it’s supposed to be quiet. Now after the quiet parts, the action picked up and stole everyone’s attention back. The furious beatings of drums and the dancers even used their own costumes as some sort of percussion instrument. It was a nice wake-up call. The wake-up call shone through into the next performance, which was a Russian gypsy piece.
I personally thought it was a light-hearted performance that was meant to keep you smiling. The weird movements of the men on stage led to more than a few heavy outbursts of laughter. Now I am not sure if they were laughing at or with the dancers but it seemed to be the former. The dancers had cheery expressions on their faces and the dance was fast paced and exciting.
Courtesy of the New York City Center
If I had to rank the performances from favorite to least favorite, then I would choose ‘High Heel Blues,’ ‘Tarian Malam (Night Dances), then the gypsy dance and last but not least, the ballet. (I guess I’m just not the ballet type.)
