GIA KOURLAS
Virtuosos, Veterans and Hopes for the Future
If this year has shown me anything, it’s that I am pulled toward dance that is raw and cathartic, brave and complex. There might be beauty, but that’s not the draw — even with a dancer as astonishing as Mira Nadon of New York City Ballet. Her willingness to go for it is what matters, her fearlessness. As is the depth of feeling of Chloe Misseldine of American Ballet Theater. Twyla Tharp’s blend of the soulful interior with the virtuosic exterior. Ralph Lemon’s range and rage. Bill T. Jones’s bravery in exposing his vulnerability. And, particularly now, the imagination and commitment of a new generation. It’s dance that takes itself seriously.
Dance is made up of bodies; bodies are people. It is a reflection of the world, and while the world is increasingly dark, dance is a place to find authenticity. You can rest, but you can’t quit. In the words of Tharp, “You dig in, you dig down, you settle in and you don’t stop.”
In no particular order, here of some of the year’s memorable moments in dance.
Ralph Lemon
“I’m shattering inside,” Okwui Okpokwasili sings — or wails, with such feeling that her voice seems to seep into your body — at the start of “Tell it anyway,” a blistering work shown at MoMA PS1 as part of the exhibition “Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon.” Lemon, a choreographer and visual artist, gathered a stellar cast of collaborators (including the electrifying Mariama Noguera-Devers) to create a work, set to to a pulsating score by Kevin Beasley, that is blessedly cathartic in its chaos. (Read our feature about Ralph Lemon.)
Alexei Ratmansky: ‘Solitude’
For his first work as New York City Ballet’s artist in residence, Ratmansky presented a searing dance dedicated to “the children of Ukraine, victims of the war.” Set to Mahler and inspired by a photograph of a father kneeling next to the body of his 13-year-old son, Ratmansky distilled grief into a dance language of bent and broken bodies as well as a heart-wrenching solo — a moving lamentation that embodies the anxiety of our age. (Read our review of “Solitude.”)
Rachid Ouramdane
As part of the Cultural Olympiad, a series of multidisciplinary arts events held in conjunction with the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Ouramdane, a French-Algerian choreographer, presented the transfixing “Mobïus Morphosis” at the Panthéon in Paris. Featuring members of the acrobatic collective Compagnie XY and the Lyon Opera Ballet, the piece turned athletic prowess into art as its performers — flying through the air and swirling across the stage like flocks of birds — brought the outside inside. (Read our feature about Rachid Ouramdane.)