Los Angeles Dance Project welcomed Pam Tanowitz, Madeline Hollander, and Bobbi Jene Smith + Or Schraiber as part of their Summer Dances Program running June 22 through July 1, 2023. Using a smaller cast of LADP members, all choreographers presented works running between 20 – 23 minutes with 10-15 minute intermissions in between. LADP’s brick and mortar space in Downtown LA always offers a peaceful and serene space to gather, drink, and converse before heading into the theater space itself, and this year’s Summer Dances curation certainly gave audience members a whole lot to talk about.
Pam Tanowitz’s “Everyone Keeps Me” Courtney Conovan, Nayomi Van Brunt, Peter Mazurowski, Payton Johnson (center), Lorrin Brubaker, Oliver Greene-Cramer – Photo by Aymeric Guilluy-Eyrau
New York based Pam Tanowitz’s Everyone Keeps Me combined “intentional unpredictability, whimsical complexity and natural drama [to invoke] master dance makers from Cunningham to Balanchine” and I believe she succeeded to a certain degree. The piece was not particularly unpredictable, or whimsical, but was intentionally dramatic in its choreographic complexity. Tanowitz gave more story on the dependency of human connection than I am used to seeing in her work. A woman in yellow lounges upstage center watching the others dance around her, while another in blue hops into the arms of someone else in a balanced pas de deux. Costume designers Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung dressed each dancer in different solid colored one pieces, with billowy mesh pants cinched in elastic at the waist and ankle, matching the colorful block lighting by designer Clifton Taylor. With the audience in such close proximity to the dancers, and Tanowitz’s choreography of shapes, lines, and structures, it was more important than ever the dancers’ forms be almost impenetrable. With Tanowitz’s works so heavily associated with that of Cunningham’s, a new generation of audience goers, particularly in Los Angeles, may find Everyone Keeps Me to be regimented, monotonous, and unrelatable. Performed by Lorrin Brubaker, Jeremy Coachman, Courtney Conovan, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Daphne Fernberger, Mario Gonzalez, Payton Johnson, Shu Kinouchi, Hope Spears, and Nayomi Van Brunt, each dancer relied on the other to perform the technical accuracy needed by Tanowitz choreography.
5 Live Calibrations, choreography by Madeline Hollander, original score by Celia Holander. L.A. Dance Project, The Joyce, NYC, Tuesday, May 3, 2022 – by Photo: Erin Baiano
Madeline Hollander’s 5 Live Calibrations seemed to be choreographed more for the enjoyment of the dancer’s than for the audience; a dance for dancers. “The choreography sets in motion an infinite number of possible outcomes that remain unknown to both the dancers and the audience until they unfold in real time.” Of course, for audience members like myself who have never seen the piece on LADP movers, everything is unique, new, and an outcome/solution is not what I am waiting to unravel before me. This is why the main focus of Hollander’s piece, the heart of 5 Live Calibrations, was the dancers’ response to each other throughout the work. Almost immediately, dancers Lorrin Brubaker, Courtney Conovan, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Daphne Fernberger, David Adrian Freeland Jr., Shu Kinouchi, Hope Spears, and Nayomi Van Brunt began counting out loud to themselves and one another from numbers 1 – 21. Counting out loud felt outdated and disconnected from the audience perspective, but for the dancers it was the pulse that unified their personalities and choreographic intent. Throughout the piece you could catch dancers laughing together or staring into each other’s eyes with the sole purpose of encouragement and perseverance. Physically, the piece was rooted in technique, and similar to Tanowitz, she choreographed within the nature of shapes, lines, and structural patterns. With simple but effective lighting design by François-Pierre Couture, we were able to focus on the integrated movement and costumes by designer Anna-Sophie Berger. With construction by Jessica Owen, the block colored paneling in the pants, and solid black one piece on the top was more distracting than it was cosmic, but 5 Live Calibrations was a good reminder that dance does not need an audience to be important or beautiful; however, I do not believe this was Hollander’s overall intention.
“Quartet for Five” – Bobbi Jene Smith + Payton Johnson, Jeremy Coachman, Courtney Conovan, David Adrain Freeland Jr., Lorrin Brubaker – Photo by Aymeric Guilluy-Eyrau taken at the Chalelet in Oct 2022.
Ending the night was Quartet for Five by Bobbi Jene Smith + Or Shraiber who used a smaller cast of five dancers, Lorrin Brubaker, Courtney Conovan, Jeremy Coachman, Payton Johnson, and David Adrian Freeland, Jr. After having seen Quartet for Five earlier this year in March, I was not at all surprised to find that I loved it just as much as the first time. With music from String Quartet No. 5 by Philip Glass we see “five people unravel what is hidden between them” and it was full of deep emotional solitude, and complex physical storytelling. Smith and Shraiber together gave us a dance of motifs, with choreography that pushed and pulled us right into dreamy states of euphoria and a darkness only loneliness can provide. Their use of reaction to response could equally be compared to the physicality of fall and recovery on the emotional spectrum of a performer. In particular, Jeremy Coachman moved with such pure intention and precision, that I forgot he danced a rehearsed set of choreographic movements; I just enjoyed his perspective and delight in humanity. And ultimately, this piece highlights humanity’s relations so poignantly, that it makes us look inward at ourselves for better or for worse. I have always been impressed with this piece, and Smith + Shraiber have yet to disappoint.
LADP’s Summer Dances presented a program celebrating dance, the old and the new. While Tanowitz and Hollander remained similar in form to the untrained eye, it was commemorating and honoring, perhaps unintentionally, the mentors, choreographers, and influences dancers bring with them throughout their careers. I highly recommend the Summer Breeze cocktail, their signature drink for the program, and an early arrival for a center seat in the top row of the theater. You can catch Summer Dances this Thursday, June 29th through Saturday, July 1st.
For more information on L.A. Dance Project, please visit their website.
Written by Grace Courvoisier for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Pam Tanowitz’s Everyone Keeps Me – Photo by Aymeric Guilluy-Eyrau
