Knowing that the American Dance Festival (ADF) is offering performances from Battleworks, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Ailey II, and David Parsons for its 75th anniversary, I’ve wanted to get a peek at some of these shows.

Some of My American Dance Festival Favorites

One of my favorite performances so far is Les Noces (2006) by ZviDance. You can see a clip of this year’s performance in DanceHere’s YouTube favorites.

This dance, by Israeli choreographer Zvi Gotheiner, is set to Stravinsky’s Les Noces. Check out the video, and you’ll see that this performance is packed with energy

Present Tense by the Trisha Brown Dance Company was another one of my favorite pieces. Even in its minimalism and calm, this is a powerful dance.

Dances for Art-Lovers or for Dance-Insiders?

I found an interesting blog post by critic Brian Howe on Present Tense and other 2008 ADF performances.

He compared Present Tense to Alwin Nikolais’ Crucible and to Nikolais’ Tensile Involvement, which were performed by the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.

Crucible and Tensile Involvement are quite different from Present Tense. But Howe made an interesting point. He said that of the performances he’d recently seen, these three were dances that can be appreciated

by “art lovers.” In contrast, performances like Accumulation and Spanish Dance, both by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, are dances for “dance insiders.

Crucible and Tensile Involvement live up to their names: heat and tension vibrate in every movement, and in the sounds, and in the lighting. It’s hard to imagine that someone could be unmoved by these pieces.

But then to group these two pieces with Present Tense as dances for “art lovers” is an interesting observation. But it’s true: when watching Present Tense, the word that comes to mind, for me, is “immediacy.” There’s a lot of controlled energy. For Howe, this power separates these pieces from the others, which he calls “coy,” and “ironic.”

I think that looking at the dances from such an audience-focused point is an interesting way to see these performances. This difference certainly exists in every art form: dance, literature, music, film. For a dancer or choreographer, it’s an important distinction to remember.

Upcoming Performances at the American Dance Festival

An upcoming performance that I would love to see is Woman Washing Rice (2004) by Kei Takei, which is part of the Japanese Festival. Takei is mesmerizing. This dance, for both her movement and the score, will make this minimalist performance one of the best pieces in what the ADF says is the most “dazzling array of Japanese companies” that the festival has offered since 1982.

The American Dance Festival is ongoing, and you can visit the ADF’s website for photos, video, and a schedule of performances.

all photos from AmericanDanceFestival.org: ZviDance (photo: Klaus Schoenwiese-NYC, 2006); Present Tense (photo: Nan Melville, 2005); Kei Takei (photo: Fumio Takashima).