Joyce Theater Presents PRELOCAJ BALLET Review -

During the barely lit opener, the ensemble lies on the stage with a random aloft knee bend that helps bring the frozen ensemble pose into focus. The ensemble oozes into movement, rather than beginning with a quick flip of the switch to on. The scene remains cloaked in shadow. We can imagine limbs as submarine periscopes emerging from the deep sea to spy land where Newton’s laws of motion rule the day in a different way. Here though, like Ravel’s chords, the ensemble moves like swaying seagrasses in an aquarium. It’s not astronauts’ weightlessness but rather the dancers’ bodies wearing the silent struggle of gravity vs. water’s buoyancy. How better to begin an exploration of Gravity in a media where it is less so.

On imagined terra firma, the dancers’ bodies are energized by a smorgasbord of musical drivers. Bach’s clavichord notes power leaps and quick angling of limbs with the nervous energy of birds. The music of Iannis Xenakis reminds some of us of Amazon night hikes where spiders’ webs decorate every direction with their aloft prey, frozen in place by silken strings too thin to see. Both Philip Glass’s score and Daft Punk’s electronic sounds give the ensemble room for repetition of fast moving tightly sewn together gestures. The grandeur of Shostakovich powers moves wider and broader still.

You too though might especially be smitten by Ravel’s Bolero as Gravity’s zip. Like the beginning, it has that gravity-in-water feel, but now, with each ramp up of Bolero’s repeating motif the choreography spreads the ensemble -in- a -ball into wider and wider arcs. Ravel makes sure that with every repeat our heart beats faster. The choreography reminds so much of Busby Berkeley aquatics that you too may begin to wonder if Berkeley’s kaleidoscope choreography was ever a thing in France, as it was in America.

Whether moving fast or slow, we quickly learn to take the strength of the Ballet Preljocaj dancers for granted. In this reviewer’s opinion, the high-precision of the ensemble moving of a piece is especially awe-inspiring. Exquisite!

Joyce Theater Rescues Ballet Preljocaj From Imagined Trumpian Roadblocks

Bravo to Joyce Theater’s stagecraft team for plying its lighting skills in the spirit of the-show-must-go-on. In the introduction we learned that Ballet Preljocaj’s lighting team had visa trouble and could not get into NY. In response to this announcement, a loud voice in the balcony shouted (to paraphrase) “..And that’s why we need to make sure Trump is never elected again..”. Applause ensued.

The show did go on with lighting seeming to be glitch-free. True, the lighting effects shown in the still images provided by Ballet Preljocaj here do show a more subtle play of lights. In this reviewer’s opinion, the changing flavors of black and white costumes —even with handicapped lighting—are very effective in highlighting the changing moods/pokes into the laws of physics, that combine into this work, Gravity.