Project Danceway
"Freefall", "Kaitlyncaitlin", "Talk Radio"
Trainor Dance
Theater of the Riverside Church
New York, NY
November 14, 2013
Caitlin Trainor, a dance professor at Barnard College, has a small modern dance company, which had its Fall season at the intimate Riverside Church theater. Among the novelties were costumes by Christian Soriano, familiar to Project Runway fans as a designer of fabulous, flamboyant evening gowns. These costumes showed that he is aware of bodies in motion, and they were modest, interesting, and quite flattering to the dancers. The choreography, too, was low-key, improvisational, and equally flattering.
The first dance, "Freefall", had no costume designer credited, but the black and white dresses and leotards with a variety of stripes were striking. The dance, for women only, opened with a dancer tiptoeing on as if balancing on a beam of light. She was joined by a group of equally concentrating dancers who alternated balances with falls. Though the piece went on too long, the constantly shifting groups, with their multi-patterned stripes made intriguing patterns, and the final scene, with the dancers in black silhouettes, was simple and memorable.
"Kaitlyncaitlin" was a duet for the choreographer and Kaitlyn Gilliland, formerly with the New York City Ballet. Soriano's costumes were vibrant red, a short, flowing chiffon dress for Trainor, and a red tunic for Gilliland made of small squares of fabric that floated as she moved. The dancers, Trainor barefooted and Gilliland on point, echoed each other's movements, showing off the difference between the grounded Trainor and the more light footed Gilliland. It was a study in movement, with no value judgements, no "ballet is silly" moments.
"Talk Radio", with Soriano's costumes ranging from jeans, shorts, and bright flirty dresses, was a slice of everyday life, as the dancers (including dynamic male dancing by Landes Dixon, Aaron R. White, and Winston Dynamite Brown), in various boxes of light, reacted to shards of conversation played over a varied melange of music chosen by Trainor (music by, among others, Mozart, Lou Reed, and Edith Piaf). The work portrayed various types of relationships, with smooth partnering, unusual lifts, and elegant dancing. Again, it did go a bit too long, but the dancers were uniformly engaged and appealing. Brown is quoted in the program as saying he has "nothing to prove, only to share", which could be a motto for the evening.
copyright © 2013 by Mary Cargill
