New York Post - Late City Final 21 de FEBRUARY de 2000
New York Post - Late City Final
New York, USA
21/FEBRUARY/2000
By Clive Barnes
CARNIVAL SPECTACLE VIA BRAZIL
Brazil’s snazzy, jazzy, sexy, slick and lovely Companhia de Dan?a will remind you of the Rio Carnival, even if you’ve never been to the Rio Carnival.
The 15-dancer troupe, founded in Rio by Deborah Colker six years ago, is a weird and charming Brazil-nut mix in which certain U.S. influences careen to mind.
Pilobolus, Moses’ Pendleton’s Momix and Elizabeth Streb, plus Canada’s Cirque de Soleil all seem to be stirred in with classic dance and a special, irreverent audacity.
The Colker’s made their debut at the Joyce Theater on Wednesday night with a work that its founder, artistic director and choreographer calls "Rota".
The 39-year-old Colker, by the way, is a diminutive, tousle-haired blonde who still dances up a whirlwind, as does the rest of her svelte company.
"Rota" was apparently inspired by Colker’s visit to Florida’s Disney World with her son and daughter, but there is nothing particularly Disneyesque about her view of the battle of the sexes, which is symbolized by nothing more effective than a circus-like athletic contest.
In a program note, Colker explains: "Rota are lines, circles, maps. The occupation and exploration of space."
Well, it starts with classically oriented strutting stuff, revue-like yet oddly pure and very funny - all danced against a backdrop suggesting some kind of blueprint.
After an intermission, we are introduced into Colker’s world of a wheel ( a 22-foot kind of Ferris wheel made of 1.5 tons of steel) and ladders. The dancers disport themselves with giddy but always disciplined abandon.
They have to be strict as trapeze artist and as graceful as manipulated statues.
The music, which starts with a touch of Mozart before veering off into the high seas of eclecticism, ranges from the Chemical Brothers to Schubert, from Brian Eno and Pachelbel to Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Johann Strauss’ Waltz from the Vienna Woods.
The latter accompanies the dancers thrillingly as they go round and round on the wheel in some climactic semblance of perpetual motion - all while the audience erupts into delighted cheering.
It’s quite a show.
