Posted by Miki Orihara
I went to see SUNY Purchase’s “MFA Spring 2007 Dance Concert” on Friday night.
It was interesting to see two chinese students’ work. One student is from Beijing and the other is from Taiwan. Two different cities, and you could see the difference between them somehow.
There were 6 dance pieces in this concert. 3 BFA program students works, and three solos by
Stephen Pier, Edwaard Liang and Tally Beatty.
“Triagon” choreographed by Stephen Pier, music by Elliot Carter was nice, physical solo. Dancer walks on to the stage, walk around with heel pounding, then Carter’s music with just percussion comes in. Pounding sound and music match, then whole movement starts. Use of shifting the weight, off balance is effective with this music. In the middle, there is a slow section in which the dancer stretches her body then clings to sitting position, like yawing of the body. Then back to the wild drumming, with physical movement and in the end, she goes off with a little suprise.
“Underneath it all…” choreographed by Edwaard Liang, music by Arvo Pärt. This dance was more like mixture between Kylian and Ek. Movement and costume and use of music reminded me of Ek’s “Wet Woman”( this is a work Ek created for Sylvie Guillem).
“Mourner’s Bench” choreographed by Tally Beatty, with a spiritual sung by Dalm Gileab. This work, as other master choreographer’s work are interesting. They all made very similar dance in the same time era. Male solo on bench with graham/horton technique like Ailey’s “I wanna be ready” gives you the idea of hardship of human beings. It was a very nice solo.
It is nice to see BFA and MFA students together in one concert.
