Parsons Dance’s New York Premiere Explores New Territory

For almost three decades Parsons Dance has been the feel-good modern dance company where organic movement meets an everyman’s approach to concert dance. Season after season artistic director David Parsons has come up with new and innovative ways to distill his choreographic point of view, attracting audiences from a wide demographic.

For its current New York season at the Joyce Theater, David Parsons chose to present two new works that expands the company’s repertoire beyond feel-good, cozy popular works.  Parsons’ “Dawn to Dusk” and former company member Katarzyna Skarpetowska’s “Black Flowers” demonstrates that Parsons Dance is now poised to delve into more conceptual pieces.

David Parsons’ “Dawn to Dusk,” a work commissioned by the Wolf Trap Foundation, explores the beauty of South Florida’s national parks of which the Everglades is an integral land mass. The background video of this multimedia work was filmed in Florida’s Everglades with dancers performing among the bulrushes and watery areas of the Everglades.  While dancers moved, glided and sometimes mimicked the movements on screen, what is most striking about this multimedia work was the terpsichorean journey facilitated by Parsons.  Parsons’ takes us from crawling, crouched, primordial movements to bird-like steps reminiscent of Everglade cranes, to flashy, sensual salsa, merengue mélanges of Miami club life. And not unlike Gerald Arpino’s iconic, multimedia, psychedelic  trip of the 1960s, “Astarte,” which also used multimedia to forward the narrative, Parsons’ “Dawn to Dusk” multimedia elements add nuance and texture, and gives audiences an almost tactical connection to Key Biscayne’s flora and fauna.

Katarzyna Skarpetowska’s “Black Flowers,” using music of Frederic Chopin, reflected on her Polish roots through this Polish mourning ritual. What stood out most about this work was the different approach to mourning by the sexes. While both groups expressed their grief through devouring space with driving, dramatic lunges, inward pirouettes, and weighted extensions, the male dancers were motivated more by individualistic, didactic expressions of remorse and sorrow, while the female dancers’ languor was evidenced in movement that was communal and group centered.

While “Wolfang” is Parsons’ foray into the classical modern dance vocabulary with a strong emphasis on form, structure and stagecraft, “In the End” reflects Parsons” continued predilection for movement styles that are deceptively pedestrian and free flowing. After closer examination works like “In the End” are highly technical and aerobic, requiring dancers that can evoke mood and nuance while making pyrotechnical fireworks look like another day at the dance party. And the easy, sometimes languid music of the Dave Matthews Band helps forward the feel-good movement style of “In the End.”

In its now 28^th season David Parsons is not content to rest on his company’s laurels but continues to challenge his roster of artists with new works that stretches their dance vocabulary and stage craft, but also expands the company’s audience base. Never just satisfied with the tried and true, David Parsons uniquely understands that change is not only inevitable, but a necessary component of growth.

For more information about Parsons Dance’s season at the Joyce Theater, go to joyce.org.

—William S. Gooch