New York Live Arts, New York, NY.
December 14, 2022.
Yag 2022, offered as a part of Gibney Company’s Up Close sequence, is a reimagining of Ohad Naharin’s acclaimed 1996 work, Yag, initially created for Batsheva Dance Company.
The lights come as much as reveal a purple door-like object and a feminine dancer standing heart stage. She holds her left arm up, circling her hips to ambient music. Four dancers enter from all sides carrying avenue garments. The dancer within the heart introduces herself: “My name is Eleni.” (They use their actual names.)
“I have a brother and a sister.” Eleni speaks robotically, her speech spaced out: “My mother is dead. My father is also dead.” Everyone drops to their knees, and in opposition to the plain-spoken textual content and beforehand gradual motion, this abrupt degree shift is fascinating. The grandfather, Jacob, does a foolish, light-footed dance in his pajamas, they usually all arrive in a household photograph. “Once my family really really loved to dance.”
Every motion feels essential, and each second of unison is extremely well-timed regardless of the obvious nonexistence of any countable music. The dancers’ measured motion, clean stares and frontal orientation are periodically pierced with frenzied bursts of virtuosic dancing. There are not any in-betweens –– the transitions from calmness to hysteria are invisible.
The characters are very clear, even with out the introductions that construction the piece. Solo breakout moments set up distinctive motion vocabularies and types (the dad, Jesse, for instance, flaunts a cute nerdiness whereas performing not possible jumps and seemingly ankle-breaking drops), and the dichotomy between particular person personalities and household resemblance forges a productive stress that contributes to the concurrently energetic and quiet ambiance that unites the work. (I discovered the grandfather character to be the least developed, maybe a commentary on aged individuals being handled as invisible in up to date, consumerist tradition.)
In one part, the dancers stroll backwards and forwards throughout the stage, leaving a member of the family behind with every move to carry out a brief solo. There isn’t any disguising of formation modifications or actually something for that matter, and the predictability of sure compositional features of the piece, a tool utilized by Naharin in lots of his works to various levels of success (Decadance: fairly profitable, Venezuela: not a lot), serves as a welcome anchor and throughline in Yag.
A young music swells and the dad studies: “…loved, really loved, really really loved to dance.” But they don’t adore it anymore, and we regularly uncover why over the course of the piece.
Now all of the dancers exit besides Jie-Hung, the mother, and Miriam, the sister, who carry out a sequence of assisted head rolls as Eleni reenters, rigorously laying out fortune cookies in an evenly spaced line from downstage left to upstage proper. Jacob, the grandfather, enters quickly after, crunching down the road, sparing one cookie between every step. Jesse, the daddy, is available in behind to smash the cookies left in Jacob’s wake, and Kevin, the brother, follows as static builds within the sound rating. (Are the boys crushing the ladies’s goals? Or maybe their concepts about destiny? About luck and the ability of false traditions?) Eleni eats the final cookie and breaks the deadpan facial features that’s up to now dominated the piece, snarkily chomping because the sound continues to surge. She lets the fortune fall carelessly to the ground and begins swaying her pelvis ahead and again flirtatiously. She’s quickly joined on this motion by her mom and sister. (A victory of the ladies over the boys?)
Miriam yells her introduction over the deafening static, performing sharp actions between spoken phrases in one of the crucial compelling moments of the piece. Her anger is palpable. She studies that the entire males in her household are lifeless.
The purple “door” (maybe meant to signify the entrance door of a home / the facade of the consummate household) lastly has its second when the mother and father carry it throughout the stage because the siblings sit evenly spaced donning unimpressed expressions, and the grandpa retraces his steps alongside the crumbs to dissonant string music. The dad, now hidden behind the door, throws garments up and over it. The mother dons his turtleneck and blazer, and out of the blue the brother is up, delivering his traces whereas effortlessly performing large break up and straddle jumps. Soon after, the grandfather begins to snap his fingers and the remainder of the household shifts backwards and forwards in time, the stage pulsating with their small, exact actions.
The supply of Miriam’s anger is revealed by a menacing duet along with her shirtless father by which a head-in-crotch grand plié manipulation motif that befell in her duet along with her mom is repeated with extra violence. Perhaps this indicators that Jie-Hung was complicit in Jesse’s crimes in opposition to his daughter. Miriam reveals her discomfort by scrunched toes and shaking legs as Jesse lifts her into the air. The part ends with Miriam performing a powerful quantity of wide-arm push-ups, her arms shaking earlier than Jie-Hung finally provides her permission to cease.
Jesse throws his pants and glasses over the door and Jie-Hung places them on. The door falls on his nude physique and she or he leaps on prime of it because the music halts. “My husband is dead,” the mom says earlier than even introducing herself, a notable sample break.
Funky music interrupts Jie-Hung’s strained monologue (that is clearly the groove part of Gaga class), and Miriam dances on prime of her crushed father. He cackles beneath the door and we see it shake. Kevin laughs together with him. (Has Jesse’s deviance rubbed off on his son? Or is Kevin laughing at his father’s helpless place? At his terminal impotence.) This part options nice weavings into and out of unison and a satisfying groundedness.
A sentimental music returns and the household performs easy, balletic choreography in good unison. Jesse throws off the door and drags himself throughout the ground on his abdomen, becoming a member of his household in a “new” portrait: the dad is nude and susceptible, the mother has taken his place, and the viewers understands much more concerning the household than they did on the outset.
Apart from Last Work, Yag 2022 is essentially the most profitable Naharin piece I’ve seen and by far essentially the most theatrical, which is maybe why it was chosen for the charismatic Gibney Company. While it appears to be like definitively totally different (extra managed, much less incomprehensible) than it does on Batsheva dancers, it’s nonetheless extremely satisfying and distinctly Ohad. The Gibney dancers execute the piece superbly, readily capturing its somber tone and distinctive characters. Miriam Gittens, who joined the corporate this 12 months, stands out for her precision, depth and unimaginable method. While the primary iteration of the road about dancing appeared tacky, by the top of the piece, it felt earned and got here to represent excess of I may have anticipated.
By Charly Santagado of Dance Informa.
