Glowing Women, Manly Soldiers Mark Bargain `Fall for Dance'

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on September 19, 2008.

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The most rewarding number in Wednesday's opening night of New York City Center's annual Fall for Dance marathon came last: a dozen of the National Ballet of Canada's men magnificently performing Jiri Kylian's ``Soldiers' Mass.'' The dance was composed in 1980; its message, of the men's fear, courage, patriotism, bonding and hope so certain to be defeated, couldn't be more timely.

Beautiful, too, though not so understandable, was the world premiere of Thailand's Pichet Klunchun Dance Company in ``Chui Chai'' (``Transformation''). A handful of women create a golden glow in their elaborate robes, elegantly topped by headdresses with quivering spires. They manipulate their wrists, fingers and feet in the eloquent, grotesque style required by their tradition. A sole man, dressed in workaday black T-shirt and trousers, joins them: a wistful acolyte. The point remains unclear (other than the presenters' impulse to go global).

The curtain raiser was Shen Wei Dance Arts in excerpts from his 2005 ``Map.'' His work, which has many fans (I'm not one) tends to be more pictorial than ``dancey,'' often in slow-motion and self-consciously gorgeous. Though ``Map'' features swifter, more forceful action, I found it no more engaging than his other pieces.

It sets its 14 dancers in the pretentious backdrop's futuristic landscape. They transform from motionless blobs to triumphantly erect figures, then to agitated moves -- endlessly repetitious and void of choreographic interest -- in strict patterns that threaten to go on forever.

Keigwin + Company presented ``Fire,'' excerpted from Larry Keigwin's recent ``Elements.'' I cringed at its grade-school humor; the audience loved it.

Must-See Hula

There is plenty to look forward to on the other programs in Fall for Dance, one of the city's great culture bargains (every seat is $10 at every performance). First among the coming attractions that are Must Sees for me is ``The Gentlemen of Halau Na Kamalei.'' My knowledge of the hula is pathetically limited to the National Geographics of my childhood. I've never seen the emblematic Hawaiian dance done live and never even knew that men did it as well as women. Now's my chance.

With the San Francisco Ballet performing ``In the Night,'' Fall for Dance will offer a welcome opportunity to see how companies other than New York City Ballet dance works created by Jerome Robbins.

Suzanne Farrell Ballet, which, through its Balanchine Preservation Initiative, often revives Balanchine works long thought lost, will dance ``Pithoprakta'' to thorny music by the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis. The title role of this duet was created on Farrell in 1968; who but she, a superb teacher, should give it its afterlife?

And then there's the bicoastal contemporary choreographer Kate Weare, from whom great things are expected. Typically, she deals with intimate personal relationships, coupling fierce movement with subtle feeling. What she and her company make of them in ``The Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us'' remains to be seen. Keep your eye on the redhead, Leslie Kraus, this year's Fall for Dance poster girl.

Through Sept. 27 at 131 W. 55th St. Information: +1-212-581-1212; http://www.nycitycenter.org.

© 2008 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.