Choreographer Stephen Petronio became veteran after founding his company in 1984 and since then creating a steady stream of dances. But when he first found out, Trisha Brown – he was the first male dancer in their company – gave him what every young dance artist needs. She rented him a place in the basement of her loft. “I had 5,000 square feet for $ 100 a month for many years,” he said during a virtual discussion at the Joyce Theater in April, “and that started my career.”
Now he’s dedicated to giving back: one way is to pay tribute to postmodern dance mentors like Brown by showcasing their early work on his company’s Bloodlines project. He also founded the Petronio Residency Center in Round Top, NY, which this year hosted bubble residencies for his company and other artists. All of this plays a prominent role in its new digital season, presented by the Joyce Theater, which runs through May 26th.
For “Pandemic Portraits”, a film, Petronio’s dancers talk about their experiences in bubbles; it’s not particularly revealing, you are grateful. A drone filmed performance of Brown’s “Group Primary Accumulation” (1973) shows four dancers on their backs moving together on a small bridge over a stream. The theme is clear in each one: the past year pushed Petronio and his dancers out of their element.
But didn’t we all feel that way? This program is less introspective than repetitive as it deals with now worn out ideas: isolation, longing for touch, longing for big movements. Sometimes it turns into sentimentality. Another challenge: in order to get the most out of the first three works, it helps to have a penchant for Elvis Presley.
Two versions of the duet “Are You Lonesome Tonight” are included, one in the film and the other for the stage; and Nicholas Sciscione, articulate and buttery, plays “Love Me Tender,” a solo created in 1993. The duets show Ryan Pliss and Mac Twining in the stage version, which was shot in the Hudson House, and Lloyd Knight with Sciscione in the film, which was also shot there as in nature.
To the “Lonesome” lyrics “Now the stage is bare and I stand there / With emptiness all around”, Knight and Sciscione, with bare chests, bend their heads back while water (from a waterfall?) Drips onto their faces. There’s a point where the capricious combination – the dancing and Presley’s voice – feels like lead. For me, it helped track down and watch the “Elvis Drunk” version of the song. It lightened the mood.
This program seems to come from a filmmaker’s point of view rather than a choreographer’s. The simple power of Brown’s “Accumulation,” a great piece of work in which dancers perform gestural movements on their backs and eventually rotate 360 degrees, is diminished by the overhead shot. I got dizzy; The cast – including a male dancer for the first time – looks like ants.
Part of Petronio’s goal is to put postmodern dances alongside his own works. How was he influenced and shaped as an artist? In the premiere of “New Prayer for Now (Part 1)”, three men with bare chests and black panties repeat the tethered dancers from “Accumulation”. Although they are standing, their movement is contained; Her arms contract and straighten as her torso flexes and rotates, even as the choreographic flow pulls her to the ground.
While “New Prayer” develops, which is set to music by Monstah Black and the New York Youth Choir, other dancers join in, whose bodies grow together into physical sculptures. There are close-ups of hands on legs, back and shoulders. In other moments, dancers unravel like silk spools across the room.
In “Absentia,” a limited collaboration book about the company’s past year, Petronio writes, “I’ve taken steps all my adult life, but this simple act of getting together in the same room and doing what we do is just as joyful and enjoyable full of strength as I can remember. “
Petronio’s new work is, as the title suggests, the first step for a choreographer to find his way back to his craft. What will his next steps be? It’s hard to know about this program; it already feels like a time capsule.
Stephen Petronio Company
Until May 26th on joyce.org.
