Word: pas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Pas de Pagaille...
...Fashioned is mostly a medley of duets and solos for three couples. Some passages are soft and slithery; others, especially a pas de deux for Kyra Nichols and Sean Lavery, strike sparks. Gradually the number of dancers increases; at the end, the stage fills with formally dressed couples who dance gamely on as the dazzling film starts again. By curtain fall, only a few are left, raptly watching the screen. Along the way there are some hard nudges-too many bumping shoulders, for instance. Nor is the work well served by Morton Gould's empty variations on the Jerome...
...middle movement, to Façades, is as serene as its predecessor is clamorous. A lyrical melody floats above a simple, slightly shifting rhythmic pattern. A shadowy frieze of girls, tracing small, varied steps, embodies the pattern; two dancers (Maria Caligari, Bart Cook) perform a sinuous pas de deux to the melody. This is a mesmerizing piece. The last segment, to a boisterous excerpt from Glass's opera Akhnaten, is what his fans call "very Jerry": arms up, fingers splayed, keep it moving, get it right the first time. Across, around, up and down the stage sweep cadres...
...Galloping Gottschalk was a hit last year, has a moody new piece, Estuary; once again the performances, by Van Hamel and Patrick Bissell, burnish a dull concept. Van Hamel, a dancer of wit and grace, has an even murkier assignment in Jiri Kylian's Torso, a grim, roughhouse pas de deux with Clark Tippet...
...Gill have, for instance, found home movies taken at a Douglas Fairbanks party that show Chaplin dancing with a globe. Something like a decade later, that little improvisation becomes the basis for The Great Dictator's strongest image, that of a power-mad tyrant's lustful pas de deux with the symbol of the world he intends to conquer. From The Professor he salvaged, three decades later, the flea circus routine, now more delicately rendered, that is one of Limelight's comic high spots...