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SUMMER IMPRESSIONS: New Victory Dance Fest with RuddUr Dance, Ishita Mili/IMGE Dance & Seán Curran Company
By Cecly Placenti
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Published on September 26, 2025
Photo: Julie Lemberger
Sean Curran Company
Artistic Director and Choreographyer Sean Curran
Co-Artistic Director: Elisabeth Coker
Rehearsal Directors: Benjamin Freedman and Lauren Kravitz
RuddUr Dance
Artistic Director and Choreographer: Christopher Rudd
Assistant to Artistic Director: Joni McDonald
Ishita Mili/IMGE Dance
Artistic Director and Choreographer: Ishita Mili
Rehearsal Director: Hanna Gosztyla
July 31, 2025
On a stormy afternoon, I escaped torrential downpours at The New Victory Theater for their annual mini-festival, New Victory Dance, a program curated especially for children. Program C featured performances by RuddUr Dance, Ishita Mili/IMGE Dance, and Seán Curran Company.
Seated in the audience with groups of summer campers, the atmosphere was boisterous, a welcome contrast to the grey, rainy day. I chuckled to myself — as a dance teacher in the NYC school system for 15 years, I adore children, but my summers are a welcome time to spend away from large groups of them! However, as they cheered, clapped, hooted, and gasped at the athletic, witty, and virtuosic performances, I was happily reminded of the unique joys of watching young people appreciate art with all of their authenticity, vigor, and appetite for new experiences. Teaching artists at the New Vic engaged the audience with interactive moments between each presentation, leading us in short, seated movement experiences related to what we had just witnessed.
RuddUr Dance’s excerpt of WITNESS PART III-TOMORROW, choreographed by Artistic Director Christopher Rudd, explored liberation, joy, and resilience through the use of trampolines. You can imagine the children’s excitement as the all-male cast bounced, rolled, and lifted these partner-props! Connected to the trampolines by restraints attached to the legs, the dancers used the devices as extensions of their feet to move their bodies through space, roll along the ground, or suspend themselves in improbable ways. When the restraints were removed, the energy amped up, both on stage and in the audience. Cartwheels, lifts, and jumps over rolling trampolines thrilled and evoked feelings of freedom and exuberance.
Ishita Mili’s Swords blended classical Indian dance and hip-hop in a display of strength and defiance. Mili’s heavy, stomping, inverted leg movements blended seamlessly with detailed yet subtle gestures of her hands, head, and eyes. The mash-up of styles, seemingly so different, was captivating, and Mili is an exceptionally fascinating performer. Small in stature but enormous in power, she filled the stage, and while her solo was long, her ability to beguile and transfix her audience kept us with her the entire time.
Curran presented a whimsical yet compositionally rigorous excerpt of his 2001 Metal Garden. Sparkling gold lamé adorned seven dancers as they marched in grid-like patterns, hips swaying with accented precision. Dancer Israel Harris breaks the flock's deadpan for a second or two and turns a mischievous smile on the audience. Curran’s humor is subtle, yet unmistakable. Although the foot patterns changed, the group stayed together in an engine-like cadence that made me want to bounce and shimmy along with them. The dancers separated, duets arising and falling away, and Curran’s asymmetrical, lightning-quick weight shifts and fanciful imagery were present throughout.
Fast-paced and incredibly musical, Curran’s choreography always manages surprise, demanding exacting detail and sudden shifts in tempo, yet no movement ever appears blurred. In one passage, dancers looped around one another in kaleidoscopic patterns and emerged through the encircled arms of their partner like flowers blooming. Harris walked out with a watering can, observing his garden, his elfish smile ever-present. This juxtaposition of understated humor alongside overt technical beauty is an endearing hallmark of Metal Garden. Back in their wedge formation at the end, all seven performers turned to smile at us, emphasizing a sense of community in which all were happily included.
As summer comes to a close and periods of rest replaced by periods of greater responsibility, I feel grateful for the smattering of refreshing treats NYC’s summer dance scene proffered, and anticipate fall’s offerings with renewed enthusiasm.
