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By Christine Jowers/Follow @cmmjowers on Instagram
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Published on October 8, 2025
Sara Mearns and Jamar Roberts. Photo by Steven Pisano
Falling In Love Again at New York City Center
Fall for Dance (Program One)
New York City Center, 131 W 55th St, New York, NY
September 17, 2025
For 22 years, Fall for Dance at New York City Center has spectacularly opened NYC's dance season. The festival offers unbelievably affordable tickets (this year's general admission cost between $23 - 30), and on every bill you will experience a top-tier lineup of dance artists from the United States and around the world. Bar none, it's the hottest dance ticket in town. This year, I scored coveted press tickets to Programs One, Two, and Three and was thrilled.
Being in the house for such a diverse range of dance encourages one to reflect on their tastes — what appeals, what doesn't, and why. What I relearned about myself is that I find the most successful and pleasing dance works (and artists) to be the ones that make me forget I am watching dance altogether.
For a detailed who's who of the artists, click here
Special thanks to Steven Pisano for sharing his photographs
To read about Programs 2 and 3, click here
The standout work of Program One was Akram Khan's Dust (2013), a New York premiere originally set on the English National Ballet, and performed brilliantly by the San Francisco Ballet. Khan doesn't simply create dance; he crafts an epic where movement is the primary vehicle of expression. With an uncompromising eye, he guides us through the details of his landscape, devising memorable images and seamlessly transitioning from solo stories to group ones, compelling us to follow.
A topless male dancer seated downstage, facing away from us, flexes and grabs at his spine; he appears tortured. As we become engrossed and curious, we realize, with the lights rising, that a vast crowd, rocking back and forth, is gathered before this man, peering at him as if mesmerized by his suffering. Behind them lies a mountain. We don't know as yet what is happening, but Khan has our attention.
As the story develops, the men in the group desperately ascend the mountain to its other side; the atmosphere suggests they're in the midst of war. The women, left behind, fend for themselves, dancing determinedly in their community for survival. Amidst a stage filled with powerful females, Khan shifts our focus to a lone soldier descending the mountain, returning from battle. As the group dissolves, one woman, (Katherine Barkman) and this soldier (Victor Prigent) make love, through dance, as if they are the last two people on the scorched earth. A far off scratchy recording in the background plays to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, "We're here because, we're here because, we're here because…." emphasizing the desolation.
Kahn and all the artists associated with this masterwork remind us of the seduction and horror of war, as well as the profound need, even in the most inhumane circumstances, for human connection.
Akram Khan's Dust. Photo by Steven Pisano
Dance Is A Mother (2025), which opened the evening, was choreographed earlier this year by Jamar Roberts, a commission by NY City Center for Sara Mearns l Artists at the Center. The dance brims with statuesque movement often generated from flowing arm gestures. The most alluring dance artists (though all are first-rate) are Roberts and Jeroboam Bozeman.
Fully in their element, the two men appear to swim through the air, commanding it. Carolyn Shaw's music played live on stage by the Attacca Quartet; vocalist Raquel Acevdo Klein's lyrics riffing Shakespeare's "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"; the duet between Mearns and Roberts, a poignant contrast of her lightness of being with his unwavering solidity; the ticking clock in the score towards the end as Mearns walked toward a beam of light, are all intriguing, but, how these elements fit together and what they were trying to say, I wasn't sure.
Dario Natarelli taps away to George and Ira Gershwin's The Man I Love in a 2023 choreography of the same name created by himself and tapper extraordinaire, Michelle Dorrance (another City Center commission). Derek Louie, on the cello, enters once the piece begins, accompanying the recorded music and the dancer, almost in a dreamlike state. Indeed, Natarelli reaches toward the musician in luscious, pleading arabesques as if approaching the unattainable.
When he can't have the cellist or his instrument, Natarelli's inner frustrations erupt into an audience-rousing, full-bodied, virtuosic symphony. I wish the guy GOT his dream guy in this scenario. I longed for more interaction between these two talented artists.
Look out for Part 2 of IMPRESSIONS: Fall for Dance at NY City Center
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