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While I was watching Parsons Dance perform, the workings of a finely-tuned sports car came to mind.
I further thought that after almost 40 years of cruising around, that perhaps Parsons Dance might now, like a sports car, be considered vintage despite its impressive speed and continued precision in performance. Without a doubt, Artistic Director David Parsons’ constant recalibrations combined with new sets of high-quality tires (i.e., dancers) has kept this company in good running order. It is everything that it was once was and more since it has been able to maintain its popularity, performing for audiences today all over the world.
The company, with seven out of nine almost-new dancers was on full display Jan. 17 at the Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth Beach, as it opened up its doors for its 38th season of showcasing dance and music in Palm Beach County. This was the seventh time that this delightful company has been invited to perform on the college’s popular Modern Dance Series and it was the perfect way to launch its season.
The repertory program included four works by David Parsons that spanned from 1982 to 2024, a work by Robert Battle from 1996, and a new piece created for the company by the successful young choreographer Jamar Roberts, who recently set a new work on Miami City Ballet. Coincidentally, both Battle and Roberts hail from Florida and were trained at the well-respected New World School of the Arts in Miami.
Parsons, Battle and Roberts all have strong ties with the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. This shared creative influence lent for a cohesive look to Friday night’s program. The dance works presented were extremely animated and ran back-to-back seamlessly with no curtain in-between the works, and with hardly a moment to acknowledge the exuberant performers in their brief bows. The young, athletic and extremely personable company members, attacking each dance with relentless energy, were the petrol that drove the program.
Music was also a big stimulant in the evening’s show. From the classic notes of Beethoven to the sounds of the world fusion vocals of Sheila Chandra, and from the post-rock and electronica experimental music of Son Lux to the rock- and funk-influenced jazz of Miles Davis, the varied and rich music invigorated the dancers’ performances and must have propelled choreographers’ creativity.
Nestled in the program of full company works were Caught and Takedeme, two tried-and-true, warhorse solos that have been performed in nearly every Parsons Dance program I have seen and have helped to pave the way for the company’s success as a touring company. These works are performed by numerous company dancers — both male and female — which adds to the pleasure of seeing them yet again on the program. In fact, Parsons himself confided in the after-performance talkback that Caught (which he choreographed for himself to dance in 1982) was undoubtedly the ticket to his rise as both as a choreographer and a dancer. He said that it was the easiest and fastest work he has ever created and that presenters always request that it be included in the program presented.
On Friday night, Caught was performed by Megan Garcia-Ziminski, a senior member of the company. Dressed in white pants and sports bra, the tall brunette methodically and somewhat ritualistically visited each of the six spotlights that appeared and disappeared on the dark stage. She danced slowly in each of the cones of light as the haunting score of Robert Fripp’s “Let The Power Fall” began first with one note, which then was layered with other notes until it built into a resonating orchestration. With the help of a pulsing strobe light, Garcia-Ziminski then proceeded to miraculously fly in the air from one spotlight to another without ever touching the ground. The optical effect was stunning and brought gasps from the audience.
The other equally sensational solo presented on the program was Takademe, choreographed by Robert Battle in 1996. On Friday night, it was danced by the most veteran performer in the company, the stellar Zoey Anderson.
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Dressed in bright red, ruffle-tiered pants with a red sports bra, Anderson stood in a stark spotlights, her diaphragm still panting from the last group work she finished dancing barely a minute before. Then slowly, and with sculpted precision, she introduced a series of quirks, jerks and articulated body isolation that echoed the exotic sounds of Sheila Chandra’s voice. Anderson’s clear and diamond-cut movement was truly spectacular as it rapidly accelerated to synchronize with the textured rhythm of the indiscernible vocals.
Garcia and Anderson also danced in the four of the ensemble works where they were joined by their fellow company members, most of whom have only been dancing with Parsons Dance for a couple of years or even less. If I hadn’t read the dancers’ bios, I would not have been aware of this fact as I was quite impressed with their visible camaraderie, high level of energy and shared movement style.
The first dance on the program, Wolfgang, choreographed by Parsons in 2005, served as a nice introduction to the company. Set to selections from the score of Amadeus, the 1984 movie about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, three couples dressed in nondescript, sepia-tone costumes that were reminiscent of the 18th century, utilizing movement drawn from the Paul Taylor technique. Defined and enhanced by the lighting design of Howell Binkley, a co-founder of Parsons Dance, Wolfgang had some memorable moments and functioned well as the opener for the show.
Another Parsons work, Whirlaway, bookended the program and was a satisfying closer to the evening. Choreographed in 2014 and set to music by New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint and his orchestra, the toe-tapping tunes such as “Yes We CanCan” were hard to resist. They made you want to jump out of your seat to dance right along the performers who, still bursting with energy, were dancing up a storm.
Anderson in particular was in constant high-rev. When she was highlighted in a solo section, I thought that there was no way she could continue to move with the same speed and clarity in her fifth dance of the evening but I was wrong. She conjured up both more speed and more clarity. She aced it.
Parsons also contributed a new work to the program. Choreographed in 2024, The Shape of Us began with the silhouetted shape of one dancer walking slowly across the stage against a bleak pale gray scrim. The dark forms of other different body shapes entered from opposite sides of the stage at random times and at increasing tempos until all the dancers were frantically running from side to side oblivious of each other.
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The urban feel of anonymity was broken as two dancers ended center stage to dance an explosive duet. Pairings of different couples continued until a group was formed and thereby created a sense of community and belonging. However, the last section seemed to drag without purpose. Even with its vivid yellow scrim and the vocal crescendo of the score, the earlier sense of focus and intent was absent but the score, which comprised a variety of pieces from the American experimental post-rock band Son Lux (known for creating the music for the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once), resonated and continued to intrigue me throughout the work.
It was only in Juke, the new piece choreographed last year by Jamar Roberts, that the performers came across as people rather than movement makers. Juke conjured up the Jim Crow South where “juke joints” were the safe places for African-American men and women to come to socialize. While playing music and dancing, they would sometimes get “disorderly” which is what the word “juke” or “jog” means in Gullah (the Creole spoken in the southern United States). These “juke joints” played an important role in the development of the blues.
Christine Darch’s costumes with their long fringe decoration gave an odd Western cowboy motif to the piece while Christopher S. Chambers’ lighting design with its sultry red tones gave a sultry bar atmosphere to the ensuing nighttime liaisons, but it was Miles Davis’ “Spanish Key” (from the ground-breaking 1970 album Bitches Brew) that pulled it all together. Played out in movement, the good times onstage were filled with connections and confrontations until couples wander off into the night, leaving one man to tip his hand to us as he backed out into the darkness.
The new dancers in the ensemble deserve mention. Each had a different personality that shone as they confidently filtered in and out of the ensemble choreography — Téa Pérez, Luke Romanzi, Joseph Cyranski, Justine Delius, Joanne Hwang, Emerson Earnshaw and Odin Brock.
The audience, which was almost entirely senior citizens, was wildly impressed (and almost out of breath themselves) with the show of sheer stamina that the dancers demonstrated while performing the nonstop, jam-packed movement. This formula of high-octane dance has worked for Parsons Dance audiences in the past and today it seemed to be just the prescription for the audiences, who are aging and gray, but thrilled to view the marvels of youth from their comfortably upholstered theater seats.