"WITNESS:  dance across boundaries," created by Sondra Loring as a collaboration with those serving inside the Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie, expressed their joy in a uniting in creativity.

Often, what passes as extraordinary in today's dance world is technical pyrotechnics -- dance and dancers who dazzle with physical feats.

I'm not immune. But every once in a while a performance comes along where the dancers' physical abilities take a backseat and a performance emerges that is equally powerful, mainly for its honesty.

That's what audiences experienced on Tuesday night with "WITNESS: dance across boundaries" at Union College. This was a most unusual creation -- one that was inspired by creator Sondra Loring's time teaching at Greene Correction Facility in Coxsackie. There, through the power of movement and words, she unlocked a collective creativity. And in "WITNESS" she retells that life-changing journey she and the inmates made through dance, music and poetry.

The group of eight looked ragtag. Aside from a ribbon of red that adorned each outfit, they were dressed in street clothes, looking like anyone else you may meet walking down the street. Yet this octet was united in this stripped down depiction of their story.

It begins with the audience entering the college's dance studio. We see the eight at a table, writing. Every minute or so, they would switch seats, rotating in a chorus of musical chairs. 

After they stepped off stage, they returned, one by one, to stand behind a table and stare at the audience. They held their fists down into the table as if holding back an urge to flinch. And then two broke into a chorus asking "Will you harbor me?" with an answer of "Will I harbor you?"

Then Loring stepped up to talk about her experience entering the prison on her first day, the doors that slammed and locked behind her and finding a group of quiet and nervous students awaiting her in the gym. She told the audience she started with walking. The cast demonstrated, circling and calibrating as they went: fast and slow, backwards and forwards.

The cast, accompanied by soothing background sounds from Aidan Samp on the drums, read letters and poems. And they danced -- in solos and together, stopping to teach each other their fancy moves. There is laughing, support when another falls and questioning each other and the audience about fears, written down in composition notebooks.

The thing about "WITNESS" was it felt raw and real. And at a time when the world is so divided between us and them, the outside world versus the inside world, they merged with unrestrained respect. It was beautiful and moving. 
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It also sent an important message about the healing power of art. Why are we not supporting it more?

Lisa Goldsworthy of Circa Contemporary Circus shows her fangs in "Wolf" on Wednesday night at Jacob's Pillow. (Photo by Christopher Duggan)

​Circa Contemporary Circus went deep into the forest to draw out one of its most misunderstood and mystifying creatures – the wolf. And in its U.S. debut of “Wolf” at Jacob’s Pillow on Wednesday night, this Australian company of 10 acrobats astounded with strength and grace in a ferocious evening-length work.
 
Choreographed by Yaron Lifschitz in collaboration with the ensemble, “Wolf,” the audience is told is based on research on the canine in the wild. And what came across, was a clannish group that is playful, loyal, and sometimes cruel. And all of it – the depiction, the movement, and the accompanying sound design by Ori Lichtik – fascinated.
 
Set on a plain backdrop onto which color of any kind could be projected, the work began with a sole performer curled in a ball and suspended from aerial ropes. Another stood nearby at military-like attention, watching the horizon. As she rose and fell from the ropes – in movement both smooth and harrowing -- the other became engaged in what is a preview of “Wolf.”
 
It can be best described as dancers climbing on and falling into other performers to a constant momentum of a drum roll. And the variations of this never ceased to astonish.
 
While watching, those in the audience gasped at much of the action. But what I found intriguing was the relationships between the players as they depicted the wolves as they ran, played, hunted and most importantly, in the end, united in a coordinated pack.
 
In one section, wolves injected themselves between a mating couple – as it happens in the wild. In another, they bounced off each other in a unifying romp. And in the end, as they hunted, their shoulders rose and fell menacingly as if stalking prey.
 
The ensemble also built these human towers – performers standing on shoulders, standing on shoulders. At times, another would fly out of seeming nowhere to be caught midflight on this totem. Here, the wolves were seemingly seeking higher, safer ground.
 
While all of the performers were mountains of brawn and grit, one stood out. Barney Herrmann was the lone wolf – launching himself into the air and crashing down to the floor again and again. It was a punishing solo that emphasized loneliness does not equal weakness.
 
In the end, the wolves were all together, pulsating to a rhythm as they stared at the audience, telling them beware and respect.  
 
Circa Contemporary Circus certainly has earned that esteem.

Kloe Walker soars in Tiler Peck's "Symphonie Espagnole" at Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Friday afternoon. (Photo by Erin Baiano)

New York City Ballet’s summer stay at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center is all about Tiler Peck.
 
Her performance in George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was inspired. She gave a pre-performance talk, she signed copies of her book, “XO Ballerina Big Sis.” And her ambitious “Symphonie Espagnole,” to Edouard Lalo’s violin concerto, made its SPAC premiere on Friday afternoon.
 
Peck deserves all the attention as she stands out as one of the company’s biggest talents. She is a draw whose charms onstage translate off. And as “Symphonie Espagnole” shows she is also not afraid to tackle the big and bold, creating a work that explores Spanish-infused themes to create splashy variations for her fellow dancers.
 
However, it’s a shame that it had to premiere at a matinee. At SPAC, matinees are always disappointing as the lighting, so essential to a ballet’s mood, is lost.
 
Friday opened with another perfect Balanchine ballet, “Serenade.” Sadly, the moonlight that bathes the dancers in the first movement of the Tchaikovsky ballet is unseen. And the ascension to the heavens, the ballet’s glorious end, just doesn’t read as it should.
 
Daytime also weakened Jerome Robbins’ “Opus 19/The Dreamer.” In it, Joseph Gordon is a man plagued by a restlessness that haunts him in dreams. But again, the open-air amphitheater, that cannot darken, dispels the nightmare’s power and diminishes the subsequent relief Gordon finds with Alexa Maxwell.
 
Still, the cast for both ballets was good, but one laments losing lighting by Mark Stanley (“Serenade”) and Ronald Bates (“Opus 19/The Dreamer”).
 
Consequently, in Peck’s piece, the potential spark is misplaced. The playful first movement with Emma Von Enck and David Gabriel, the daring dances in the second and third with Kloe Walker and Roman Mejia and finally the romance of the fourth with Mira Nadon and Ryan Tomash are vibrant, but lack the sense of progression that lighting by Brandon Stirling Baker likely provides.

It is clear that Peck’s work was well-constructed. She designed the dance beautifully with lines of corps de ballet dancers – upstage and near the wings -- defining the space. Throughout, she sprinkled Spanish spice. Finger snaps and hand claps evoked flamenco while the red, chocolate and icy blue costumes by Robert Perdziola aroused a feeling of toreadors and dark-eyed flirtatious senoritas.
 
Mejia stole the show and hearts with his flashy smile and the ease of his endless turns. Backed by eight other men, Mejia and crew asserted their vigor, prompting some in the audience to surely swoon.
 
All three ballets will be repeated on Saturday night, where they will be seen as intended – in the glow of evening’s light.

Tiler Peck with Chun Wai Chan were divine in Balachine's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on Wednesday night at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. (Photo by Paul Kolnik)

​Choreographer George Balanchine created hundreds of ballets – a handful of which are deemed perfect. Among those that reached perfection was his rendering of Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
 
And 60 years ago, this magical ballet – full of fairies and fireflies -- raised the curtain as the first performance at the newly constructed Saratoga Performing Arts Center. At the center’s anniversary this summer, this exquisite masterpiece has returned. And on opening night Wednesday, the enchanting music and dance once again enthralled.
 
Much could be attributed to the cast – Unity Phelan as Titania, Daniel Ulbricht as Oberon, Taylor Stanley as Puck and Emily Kikta as Hippolyta. But the highlight came in the second act with Tiler Peck and Chun Wai Chan dancing the post-wedding divertissement. Peck was stunning. In the adagio sections of this seemingly promenade through the Theseus’s palace gardens, Peck glowed. She elevated every step with a naturalism that radiated charm and confidence that was so rare it was, indeed, wonderful.
 
Just seeing those two, she en pointe, walking and wheeling their arms was a revelation. Being there for that moment sparked a hunger to see more. But Balanchine ended their pas de deux at the right time. It was sublime.
 
Of course, the story, all told in the first act, keeps one smiling. The Shakespearean tale centers on antics of Puck whom Oberon directs to work out the romantic entanglements of Helena, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius. Meanwhile, the enchanted jester plays a trick on a thespian, Bottom, turning him into a donkey, and prompts Titania to fall desperately in love with him.
 
Oberon, performed with strength and gusto by the incomparable Ulbricht, straightens it all out in the end. And the lovers, and Hippolyta and Theseus head for a lavish royal wedding.
 
Not only is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” a work of perfection, it’s also ideal for SPAC. Surrounded by tall trees, the amphitheater inspires the sense that we can separate from the concrete world of worries. Furthermore, SPAC was designed with Balanchine’s input – including a demand for lush acoustics.
 
The New York City Ballet Orchestra, under the baton of Andrew Litton, along with Albany Pro Musica singers, soared.
 
In 60 years, however, things have changed. The ballet’s stay, once four weeks, is now four days. And the once accompanying museums and schools the company inspired are now shuttered. Gone are the days of one section full of ballet students screaming.
 
But what hasn’t changed is the spell “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” casts. It is glorious and will be repeated on Thursday and Friday night. I highly recommend dance lovers, go because at the end of the day, it’s up to the audience to keep Balanchine’s dream alive.

To Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, “SCAT!” is personal. A love letter to her parents, it takes a deep dive into her ancestors’ struggles and joys gaining freedom in the south and their migration north to Kansas City. And what they found was poverty, racial battles and ultimately riches in the form of music, dance, barbecue and the people who formed a bond of mutual care and respect.
 
But “SCAT! … the Complex Lives of Al & Dot and Dot & Al Zollar” has its own struggles. For one thing, the evening-length show now onstage at the Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow, carries on a bit too long. Moreover, its initial showing on Wednesday night during the festival’s second week looked a little under rehearsed, a surprise for the inimitable 42-year-old Urban Bush Women.
 
 “SCAT!” still lands a punch, mainly for the music. The sound is the heart of the piece.  As composed by Craig Harris with a story by Talvin Wilks, this work should be a production on Broadway, not the dance stage. Truly dance took a backseat to the six outstanding singers that kept the episodic tale of Al and Dot moving.
 
Vocalists Milton Suggs, Brianna Thomas and Charenee Wade along with what was dubbed the “Story Folks” who danced and sang, Du’Bois A’Keen, Stephanie Battle and Courtney J. Cook, wove the narrative with sass and mystery. And while it was clear that much of their story was lost to history, what they offered was expressed with honesty and love.
 
Broken in chapters, the highlight was the sultry depiction of “Missus Wrong” with Wade at the microphone.
 
Zollar herself played a part, telling a tale of her family of “dreamers and schemers” who came to her in a dream. The ancestors, known and unknown, were dining at the table on the sea. The food and the table, as they were swallowed up in the ocean, told her topursue her dream. And that dream, she tells the audience in the end, was Urban Bush Women.
 
The company has gone far by creating important works exploring the untold stories of Black Americans. The Great Migration, with her parents as its center, is a worthy idea for any stage. But “SCAT!” needs a bit of polishing. Once refined, “SCAT!” will blow the walls off any theater.