PHILADANCO AT THE JOYCE, STEVE REICH AT BAM: NY DANCE WEEKEND

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on October 6, 2006.

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Glimpsed on a DVD sampler from Philadanco: five gorgeous, superbly athletic, pastel-gowned women dance out their complaints about the guys giving them heart trouble.

A minute later, a crew that deserves high-risk pay invades the stage with wild leaps and lifts aiming for, and miraculously achieving, soft, safe landings.

That first clip comes from Carmen de Lavallade's ``Love Songs,'' to Billie Holiday recordings. The other is of Christopher L. Huggins's ``Cottonwool,'' which probes the nature of daring.

These dances will be joined on the New York program by Daniel Ezralow's ``Pulse'' and the spiritually charged ``For Truth,'' by Ronald K. Brown, one of today's most gifted choreographers.

Philadanco -- Philadelphia Dance Company on its birth certificate -- was founded in 1970 and is still run by Joan Meyers Brown, who will receive a Dance magazine award next month. Originally, Brown aimed to provide training and performance opportunities then scarce for African-American dancers. Her company remains predominantly black, as does her roster of choreographers.

As Brown says, after 50 years in the field, ``There's a dearth of opportunity still.''

Philadanco performs through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at 19th Street. For information, call (1)(212) 242- 0800 or go to http://www.joyce.org .

Salute to a Composer

Just as Tchaikovsky served classical ballet, Steve Reich has nourished postmodern dance. Choreographers are drawn to Reich's work because of its vibrant pulse, its hypnotic power, and its postmodern strategies, which include creating a rich matrix with a radically pared-down vocabulary.

``Steve Reich @ 70,'' a multiconcert birthday homage to the inventive composer, kicks off with a choreographic tribute through Saturday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Belgium's high priestess of iconoclastic movement, and the British, more newly celebrated, Akram Khan are performing in a shared program of dances they created to Reich's music.

De Keersmaeker's contribution is her breakthrough piece, the 1982 ``Fase, four movements to the music of Steve Reich.'' She and another woman, Tale Dolven, execute terse phrases of pedestrian steps with great intensity, slipping in and out of synch. Relentlessly repeated, with only the smallest escalations, the ordinary becomes cataclysmic.

Khan's choreography, for himself and two additional men, was commissioned to accompany Reich's 2006 ``Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings,'' played live by the London Sinfonietta. The dance echoes Reich's tactic of drawing from cultures decidedly different from traditional European forms. Powerful and fluid, the choreography looks like a blend of ritual, martial arts, and sensuous self-display.

``Steve Reich @ 70'' is at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn. For information, call (1)(718) 636- 4100 or go to http://www.bam.org for information.

© 2006 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.