Joyce Theater Presents Parsons Dance Review

By the looks of Ludwig in its world premiere, choreographer David Parsons shares this visceral reaction to Beethoven’s music, and then some. The 9-dancer ensemble—with each dancer dressed in electrifying red and orange hues with billowing flaps at knee or hip that emphasize flow (Costumes: Christine Darch) —are as quick-footed as the sprightly music meter. There isn’t a micrometer of distance between their moves, the beat and the waxing and waning of chords. The dancers’ arms and legs fly into Y’s and X’s. One imagines the score’s sforzando cues as joyous shouts to the dancers that say “..and now you can jump!..” And so they do jump, high in the air, with their legs and ankles meeting to make isosceles triangle shapes. When the silent fermatas come, each of the dancers snap their heads like a newly minted wazzup? punctuation mark.

Brothers (1982, choreographed by David Parsons and Daniel Ezralow) did change up the menu but in no way dashed our vivace high. Here, nearly look alike dancers, dressed only in black shorts that emphasized their athletic torsos— Joseph Cyranski and Emerson Earnshaw— distill years of psychoanalysis for those with sibling issues into an easy-to-smile at capsule. They are ecstatic about their cut-from-the-same-cloth closeness, until they are not— and though we aren’t quite sure which is the big brother pained by the younger pest, we DO know the terrain they are covering.

An otherworldly score by Daniel Kluger is the backdrop for 8 dancers wearing tinsel-like shiny vests of various lengths over their leotards (Costumes by Márion Talán de la Rosa). In some angles the diaphanous leggings let the light shine through. The movement is loosely tied to electronic notes. After a pause, the ensemble re-emerges with each dancer’s head enclosed in a red sequined full head mask. They remind of pawns on a chess board. We don’t know if they are blinded by their costume. Actually, we can’t even imagine how they breathe! The interplay of lighting (Christopher Chambers), twinkling costumes and masks, ever more cacophony in the score and the moves build momentum until the ensemble’s final jump with reach to the sky captured in a dramatic silhouette black and white shadow finale. Intriguing!

It’s a total WOW!

Evening Capped with Two More from the Parsons Dance Repertoire

WOW! Is exactly the word the summary of crowd favorite Caught, choreographed with lighting concept by David Parsons in 1982. In this work— first seen by this writer in Chicago performed by Joffrey Ballet— the exquisite timing of a strobe light with the solo dancer’s moves lets us feel that she (in this performance, Megan Garcia Ziminski) is truly flying across the stage. WOW! WOW! WOW!

The Novo of the finale Nascimento Novo is like an injection of jungle adventure into otherwise soft Bossa Nova sounds. There are whistles and other exotica bubbling in the score. The drum is the driver of the dance— and the drummer is on the stage and part of the action for the latter part of the performance.