Audience Reviews

AUDIENCE REVIEW: A first look at Ingrid Silva's new work for Accent Dance NYC

Company:
Accent Dance NYC

Performance Date:
September 10 (world premiere on October 3rd)

Freeform Review:

On September 10, a small audience at Taylor Dance East got an early look at Ingrid Silva's new work for Accent Dance NYC.

Silva came to New York from Rio de Janeiro in 2007 on a scholarship to Dance Theatre of Harlem, and she spent 18 years with the company, rising to principal dancer. Accent Dance NYC commissioned her piece, "Between Two Heartbeats," through its NEXT program, which supports emerging choreographers. The work will have its world premiere at SEEN, Accent Dance NYC’s Fall Gala on October 3 at the Ailey Citigroup Theater. 

"Between Two Heartbeats" explores what it means to live between two places, and it grows out of Silva's own move from Brazil to New York. She has described it as New York the way she's lived it, "fast enough to run for a train, slow enough to stop for a hug on the sidewalk." Ten dancers perform it to an original score by her longtime collaborator Leandro Albuquerque. The piece opens with everyone already onstage, and the footwork comes fast. Partway through, the ballet gives way to passinho, a Brazilian funk street dance from Rio, and the dancers start calling out to one another. By then the whole room was with them, and it was hard to walk out without wanting to see what Silva makes next. 

Three artists with long ties to Accent Dance NYC filled out the program, each bringing a completely different kind of dance to the same small stage. Two of them, Will A. Ervin Jr. and Miaotian Sun, were commissioned through NEXT, just as Silva was.

Pedro Ruiz spent 21 years as a principal dancer with Ballet Hispánico, and he originally created "Mar y Tierra" for Ballet Contemporáneo de Camagüey in Cuba. The excerpt draws on Mediterranean musical traditions and is set to "Amargura," a song by the Sardinian singer Elena Ledda. Elisa Toro Franky danced it with Kevin Ortiz Lemus.  Much of their partnering happens close to the floor, with Lemus lifting and steadying her from below. It is a tender duet, and in a room that small, every exchange between the two dancers felt intimate, as if we had been let in on something a larger theater would keep at a distance.

Ervin performed his solo "Patience (24 Hours)," set to "Rain" by Sunday Service Choir. The premise: a man who has just died gets 24 hours back among the living to decide who to see and what he never got to say. Ervin dances it with real urgency, as if every movement might be his last chance to say something. He catches nearly every beat of the song, and you could feel the room holding its breath until the final note.

Sun adapted and performed "Rouged Lips," a Chinese classical dance by Tong Ruirui inspired by "Dian Jiang Chun," a poem by the Song dynasty poet Li Qingzhao. She plays a young woman confined to a small space, waiting for someone she loves and returning again and again to rouge her lips. Her dancing folds modern movement into the flowing lines of Chinese classical form, and it is so elegant that for a few minutes the studio on Grand Street felt very far away.

Tickets for the Accent Dance NYC Fall Gala: https://e.givesmart.com/events/Pue/

Author:
Linda Kent, AccentDance NYC Board of Directors, Julliard School Faculty, former Principal with Alvin Ailey and Paul Taylor

Website:
https://e.givesmart.com/events/Pue/

Photo Credit:
Steven Pisano