Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company teamed up with The Musicians of Ma'alwyck at TheRep. (Photo by Gary Gold)

For more than three decades, the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company has teamed up with other artists to inspire and elevate its vision.
 
The partnerships have had varying levels of success – some downright exhilarating with others weirdly disappointing. But Artistic Director Ellen Sinopoli’s latest collaboration, this time with the Musicians of Ma’alwyck, seemed just right. The artistry of Sinopoli with violinist and musical Artistic Director Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, seen together at TheRep on Friday night, was like watching two old friends who easily finished each other’s sentences.
 
While the give and take between two artists is surely more tense, the two resulting works from their pairing, “Dust Devils” to Missy Mazzoli’s “Death Valley Junction” for string quartet” and “Telling” to James Lee III’s Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, showed these two have a strong and visionary rapport.
 
In an introduction, Sinopoli and Schwartz set the scene for both dances and include a story of Marta Becket, a Broadway ballerina who got a flat tire in Death Valley Junction and decided to stay – opening and dancing every night until she was 80 at the Amarosa Opera House. The dance opened with a short documentary of her, that laid out the vast and dry desert. Becket was ultimate dust devil, making way for Sinopoli’s own quartet of spiraling beings.
 
Created on four of her newest dancers – Liv Butowsky, Kaitlyn Combs, Kyra Pitts and Frances Teppner – the work was a portrait of the desert. The dancers rolled out like tumble weeds punctuated by angular and sudden moves – reminiscent of prickly cacti. While the dancers would briefly interact, they were tossed away by the haunting winds offered up the string quartet that in addition to Schwartz featured Andre Laurent O’Neil on violin cello, Heather Chan on violin and Andrew Snow on viola.
 
The sense of vastness and breath elicited was alluring and moving.
 
“Telling” drove farther than atmosphere alone. In four parts, Sinopoli created a society in which dispirit bodies, suspicious of or indifferent to each other, finally found acceptance and a place for all. In it, Sara Senecal, a veteran of the company, served as the work’s central, eye-catching figure – both protective and combative of others while trying to find her place in the fold that was unwelcoming to strangers.
 
Ultimately, the six dancers melded to form a single solid sculpture that reminded of the strength of a united collective. Was it a cautionary tale for today’s time. Perhaps. But it worked.
 
The musicians, set off to the side of the stage, included Brett Wery on clarinet, the instrument that dominated the musical landscape overriding some foreboding strings.
 
Finally, the evening also featured two intriguing and appropriate musical interludes – W. Jay Sydeman’s “Journey Down the American River” and George Walker’s Lyric for String Quartet.
 
This program will be repeated at 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, at SUNY Schenectady. It’s definitely worth a look and a listen.
 
One more thing. Saturday’s show will also be Senecal’s last with the company. The ensemble's most quietly beautiful and exotic dancer is pregnant with her second child. And while she said she will continue to dance off-stage, she will be seriously missed on the public one.

Ruri Mito offers her North American premiere of "Where we were born" at PS/21 Center for Contemporary Performance in Chatham.

Ruri Mito drives in the slow lane. As seen on Saturday at PS/21 Center for Contemporary Performance -- this Japanese dancer and choreographer moves like molasses – at least that was the case with the two works that received their North American premieres -- a solo “Matou” and her group work “Where we were born.”
 
And because of the speed, or lack thereof, Mito’s observers must be curious. Otherwise, one can easily be lulled into a state of indifference or sleep.
 
The thing is, Mito doesn’t seek to entertain, which is something most American audiences prefer.  Rather she aims to take her viewers on a painstaking journey where bodies are sedated, but moving sculptures that emphasize effort – the muscular and tensile strength to raise an arm, to cock a head or curl an ankle.
 
It’s not for everybody but it does remind long-time contemporary dance spectators of other Japanese dancemakers, primarily the team of Eiko and Koma. They made their life’s work to move imperceptively. It would take this couple hours to move from point A to point B.
 
For a lot of people, that is agony. And Mito’s solo felt that way at first. In quiet, in a shoulder stand with just her back and buttock facing the audience, she did nothing what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, she sunk one hip to slide out of the shoulder stand to expose the top of her head, then an arm and then another arm. It was like watching a yoga class, an advanced one, in slow motion for 20 minutes.
 
The piece was meant to explore how the body constantly renews itself, but it offered more of a feeling that the body struggles to transcend and coordinate its seemingly disparate pieces to work as one, high-functioning, intelligent organ.  
 
The group work that followed, for eight dancers, was much the same. But in this case, with music by Chie Nakajima, “Where we were born” felt like a nucleus striving to support and uplift its DNA in a landscape that was untested. The music sounded like a humming, distant wind, threatening to topple the structure. At times their unity was challenged and interlocking arms and hands were pulled apart. In this way, Mito created some suspense and tension, enough to keep eyes and minds awake. But for the most part, this body stayed integrated as a single undulating creature.
 
In the end, the dancers landed where they started, essentially in a heap. It wasn’t an optimistic ending, as if Mito was saying that exploring outside the circle was dangerous.
 
Regardless, it is clear that Mito does have something to say. One just needs a ton of patience to see it.