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(Dance Review) Garth Fagan
7.21.05
JACOB'S PILLOW DANCE
Becket, Mass.
GARTH FAGAN DANCE
July 17-21, 2005
DanceCollageForRomie (2003
--ING (2004)
Coming a week after two of the best programs of the season -- Alonzo King's LINES Ballet and Ben Munisteri Dance Projects -- no one would have it easy. But you'd think if anyone would it would have been Garth Fagan Dance, which kicked off its residency at the Ted Shawn Theatre with a three-part program last night.
Sad to say that after the virtuoso, ballet-based acrobatics of Alonzo King's dancers, and after the street-smart, witty, and intelligent dance of Ben Munisteri's troupe, Garth Fagan's program came across as staid, bland, and even a little inert.
Inert isn't always bad, as so much modern dance suffers from hyperactivity. At his best, Fagan choreographs like a painter, creating tableaux, some still, some moveable, but with the emphasis always on lines and shapes, and small movements and gestures, rather than movement for movement's sake. And several times throughout programs including DanceCollegeforRomie (a tribute to artist Romare Bearden) and --ING, Fagan's dancers created remarkable body pictures, juxtaposed alone or together.
But even when they did, they seemed lost on the cavernous Shawn stage. Perhaps these modestly choreographed and danced programs would have been better served on a smaller, more intimate stage. But coming two weeks after Ronald K Brown's ambitious if failed epic, and a week after King's grand, athletic take on traditional ballet, Fagan's work seemed slight and wispy. He seemed to work from a very limited vocabulary, favoring horizontal lines with occasional verticals thrown in for contrast, and whether dancers were alone, in pairs or trios, or in an ensemble, whether the music was Shostakovich, Jelly Roll Morton or Villa Lobos, there really was not much emotional difference. Munisteri's company shared some similar instincts and vocabulary, yet even where Fagan's dancers might have been more technically accomplished (although this wasn't readily apparent, and they were nowhere near as accomplished virtuosos as ALonzo King's), there seemed to be much more at stake in Munisteri's work -- more ideas, more risks taken, more surprises and challenges.
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