No Gimmicks Needed

A fine season at  Jacob’s Pillow’s dance festival closes with two premieres, dramatic lighting and, finally, some mesmerizing choreography.

   Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival drew the curtain on an excellent season with a fine, if subdued, performance by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.  

   Two world premieres by Alejandro Cerrudo, now the company’s resident choreographer, were featured.  

    In both “Blancoâ€� and “Deep Down Dos,â€� Cerrudo uses a dark stage, smoke and dramatic lighting, all of which can seem like tricks to juice up weak choreography.

   In “Blanco,â€� the harsh lighting was from above, illuminating the powerful muscles and severe expressions of its four female dancers. Set to piano music by Mendelssohn and Charles Valentin Alkan, the piece was brief and not fully developed.

   “Deep Down Dosâ€� had more going for it – with a light on wheels that rushed back and forth across the back of the stage and shone into the audience, revealing the dancers only in silhouette, evoked, at various times, immigrants escaping the border patrol, or the X-Files, or film noir.

   Aszure Barton contributed “Untouched,â€� a melodramatic piece set before a glamorous red curtain, half open for, perhaps, the grand entrance of a diva or a queen. Shivers, shakes and mannered gestures were mixed in with the balletic steps, the high style-calling attention to itself unnecessarily at times. Solos were followed by a sensual and beautiful duet by Benjamin Wardell (whose power and grace stood out in every piece he was in) and Ana Lopez.  

   The best piece on the program was “Tabula Rasa,â€� choreographed by Ohad Nahari in 2001. A pulsing and athletic first movement is followed by a mesmerizing and meditative second, in which a long line of dancers emerges from the wings, one at a time, leaning side to side like synchronized metronomes as they creep across the stage. Women leap into the arms of men or over their shoulder until, sometimes, the men don’t catch them and they crash to the floor. 

   The group is like a mob, rushing this way and that, with individuals seeming to try to escape only to get sucked back in.

    It was a lovely end to a thoughtful piece, no gimmicks needed.

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