Martha Graham's spirit lives on gloriously in her proteges.
Wife and husband team Jacqulyn Buglisi and Donlin Foreman preserve Graham's technique and emotional resonance in their own intelligent dances.
With six pieces in Buglisi/Foreman Dance's first program, there is something for most tastes. From the playfulness of Foreman's So I May Say, to the psychological intensity of Buglisi's Red Hills, the performances are deeply committed and the choreography fluid and precise.
Graham's signature surfaces in the use of stretchy and draped cloth to accentuate spiraling torsos, the contracted shapes pulled from deep in the belly and the archetypal poses that draw on classical references.
Associate founders of the company, Christine Dakin and Terese Capucilli also worked with Graham for decades and bring rich experience to the works, which depend as much on physical technique as the ability to project internal states.
Capucilli's portrayal of Sarah Bernhardt in Buglisi's Against All Odds is stunning. A complete embodiment of both the actress's vulnerability and pride - her arms flick, her figure crumples and recovers as she sails across stage with composed melodrama to a Rachmaninoff score.
Miki Orihara and Stephen Pier are just as focused in Foreman's From Pent-Up, Aching Rivers. The movement remains unadorned, slow and traditional. Yet the tension between the bodies is convincing and secure from the moment the dancers enter the stage, staring at the audience to text by Walt Whitman.
Buglisi's Frida, a tribute to Prida Kahlo, is an exquisite centerpiece to the program. A trio of Fridas (Capucilli, Dakin and Orihara) coil and stretch against a backdrop of Kahlo's artworks. The paintings rang from familiar to obscure, paying homage to the artist's diverse repertoire.
Slides, text and cream costumes, that transform into screens for the projections, harmonize into a densely layered accessible whole.
LIVE musical accompaniment from the Broyhill Chamber Ensemble, whether on stage collectively or JY Song on solo piano, heightens the dancing even further, and the restrained design of each piece builds mood without detracting from choreography. Simplicity defines all the dances. As Graham demonstrated so often, passion speaks for itself. Buglisi/Foreman's adherence to this philosophy and their telling of humanistic and emotionally-charged stories position them in the early contemporary dance genre.
This tradition, sadly, is often undervalued in our depersonalized post-modern world.
