Latest dance review: AIDS and New York, 1985

I had a dance review published today in the Sun. Dance pieces are really exercises in writing more than anything. On principle, I am a nice reviewer. I mean, if it's bad, I don't write about it. I have realized that no one is interested in reading about dance. So the article always to be more than just about dance.

Tragedy strove to reverse itself in Byron Suber’s dance piece, Bach Solo Cello Suite No. 1, Circa 1986. Dancers in black fell to the ground one by one, like birds shot in midair — only to rise again, flinging their skirts with a death-defying joy.
Suber’s dance piece was performed at the State Theatre last Saturday for The Ithaca Ballet’s Winter Repertory Performance alongside with pieces by other choreographers. Bach Solo Cello Suite No. 1, Circa 1986 was an exercise in contrasts.
Dancers whirled together simultaneously with a frightening vigor — producing a dizzying juxtaposition of chaos and order. Neo-classical balletic movements jostled with modern dance techniques for a place in a piece where life and death are intimately intertwined.
Even though the dancers sashayed, strutted and tangoed in pointes across the stage with larger-than-life stage grins in other pieces, they came into Suber’s piece stripped of the theatricality that was characteristic of the earlier pieces on show.
In contrast to classical ballet, which dictates that dancers present themselves in one direction (usually towards the audience), the Cunningham school of dance rethought the concept of the dancer’s “front,” directing the dancer simply to move where they were moving, and adopt multiple “fronts.”
Cunningham-esque in its irreverent treatment of the neoclassical and explicit rejection of the manifestly theatrical, Suber’s piece had a deeply psychological texture and historical cadence.
In the first movement, set to the prelude of Bach’s “Solo Cello Suite No. 1”, eight dancers moved through the stage space. Collapsing their backs, they took on the posture of weepers. Lifting their black skirts up and releasing them, each dancer appeared like a mourner scattering the ashes of a beloved.
The piece was choreographed in 1985, during the escalating AIDS crisis. Then, Suber was living in New York City’s East Village — a bustling, creative community synonymous with the thriving performance and art culture in the 70s and 80s. Then, the AIDS crisis took a toll on the dancing community centered around the East Village.
[The rest of the article is here, and so is another about Marc Bamuthi's slam poetry and hip-hop ballet. ]