In Bronx, Dancer Does Right Thing
For 10 years the choreographer Arthur Aviles has been doing yeoman’s work in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx, where he and his partner, the writer Charles Rice-Gonzalez, founded the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) in 1998. This work — maintaining a safe, welcoming space for performers and people of all stripes — is as much about activism as it is about art.
It is possible, while marveling at Mr. Aviles’s accomplishments, to lose sight of what a singular performer he is. And so it was good, at Tuesday’s spring gala for Arthur Aviles Typical Theater, to be reminded with “Only,” choreographed by Bill T. Jones as a vehicle for Mr. Aviles.
During his previous life as an internationally renowned dancer, Mr. Aviles spent eight years with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company; Mr. Jones knows how well Mr. Aviles can command an audience’s attention. In “Only,” he has created (with contributions from Mr. Aviles and Benny Ninja) an affirmation both of Mr. Aviles’s abilities and his decision to forgo the world’s grand stages for a niche in the Bronx.
The work takes its title from a Rilke poem, quoted in the program: “… only when some pure Wither outweighs boyish insistence on the achieved machine.” Mr. Aviles is that machine, coiled and silky, and the dream of creating BAAD!, presumably, his “Wither.”
In a collagelike, recorded score that includes Frank O’Hara’s “Metaphysical Poem,” an English folk song and music by Morton Feldman, the most powerful elements are a series of reassurances given by Mr. Jones (“I am in the right place,” “I am doing the right thing”) and Mr. Aviles’s memory of walking through his father’s garden as a boy: from childhood security to adult anxiety. The white stage has been organized into squares by black tape, and Mr. Aviles flows from one to the next, illuminated by a shifting square spotlight.
His movement morphs from a creaturely crawl to mimetic gestures and poses that telegraph great emotion. And he pauses often, or bends down as if catching his breath. He is doing the right thing.
A premiere by Doug Elkins, “Throw Like a Girl,” offered far more ebullient fare, featuring Liz Prince’s lusciously colorful costumes and splicing salsa and club music with what sounded like commentaries from salsa competition judges.
As a choreographer, Mr. Elkins is a professional splicer, effortlessly pulling from multiple sources. But while there are fine moments in this ensemble for six dancers, including Mr. Aviles and the elegantly articulate Alethea Pace, it seems unformed. Deft partnering sequences rub elbows with rather lazy stretches in which the dancers are left to noodle about on the floor in vaguely capoeiralike motions.
There is nothing vague about “This Pleasant and Grateful Asylum,” an unflinching duet by Mr. Aviles that followed a sweet, slight opener, “Hercules.”
It at first seems a silly nod to Martha Graham’s “Lamentation,” as two shapes tussle inside a stretchy purple sack. Then two knives rend the fabric and Neil Totton and Brandin Steffensen emerge naked, juxtaposing politely formal dance moves with insistent kisses. Made in 1999, this bracing work must have served as a banner of sorts: We are here to stay. As is.
Arthur Aviles Typical Theater runs through Saturday at the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, 841 Barretto Street, Hunts Point; (718) 842-5223; bronxacademyofartsanddance.org.
SOURCE: NYTimes.com
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