I was very enthusiastic to attend the Fall For Dance performance at the New York City Center. I had previously seen other performances such as Swan Lake at Lincoln Center, but that was a few years ago and I was excited because I had never visited the New York City Center before.

I thought the opening dance number, Miami City Ballet’s Polyphonia, was very beautiful and captivating. I really admire ballet dancers for their patience in learning ballet, it must take a lot of discipline to perfect the art. It is astonishingly tough to balance on the very tip of your toes, and I applaud the dancers for being able to do so. Although the dancing was marvelous, I thought the music was questionable and not really my taste. I realized most of the songs were composed in a minor key, which added a melancholy vibe to each dance. All in all, I still thought the first dance number was spectacular.

My all-time favorite performance had to definitely be the Dorrance Dance Myelination; the fact that this performance was a world premiere made it all the more better. However, I do believe the other two dance performances deserve a lot of recognition in this review as well. To say the least, Vincent Mantsoe’s GULA left me at a loss for words. The Trisha Brown Dance Company You can see us also filled me with wonder and awe.

I don’t think any of the three other dance performances struck me as hard as Myelination did, it was so dazzling to see all the dancers to be on beat with one another and so in sync with each other’s movements. Just think about it, while tap dancing one wrong step from someone and anyone can hear it.

I thought the performance overall was sensational, the dance moves, the live music, and the costumes. I really liked how the dance performance was broken into different parts – where they first performed as a whole group and then in smaller groups and solo dances. I thought it really highlighted individual dancer apart from a group. I feel like in dance groups a lot of the time a dancer’s talent is defined by the group, where if the group as a whole is amazing then the individual is amazing, whereas if the group as a whole suck then the individual also sucks. I’m not saying the Dorrance Dance sucked, it was quite the opposite, but I liked that they put in solo dances where the dancers were able to showcase their individual talents apart from dancing together.

The live music was one of the best parts of the performance, the musicians were so talented. They constantly switched between instruments during performances and it was so captivating to see one man play three different instruments. It hit me how professional the musicians were and I don’t know if a lot of people noticed the band in the back. I appreciate the inclusion of the live band because it highlights the musicians that play the tracks for all of the dances, they aren’t playing off stage or from a tape – it’s live on stage for the whole audience to see. The musicians were just as talented as the dancers and it was truly breathtaking.

The last thing I was really fond of about the performance were the ‘costumes’ of the dancers. I wouldn’t exactly say they were real costumes, but they were just regular clothes. The dancers looked like they could’ve came straight from an office job to perform at night. I thought it was really helpful to the audience, because it made it easier to focus on the dancing itself. A lot of times a dancer’s costume will be so distracting in theater it can be hard to focus on what is really happening on stage. I thought the simplicity of what the dancers were wearing was a very nice touch.

All in all, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the Fall for Dance program at the New York City Center. If I ever have the chance to see the Dorrance Dance perform again, I would definitely jump on it.