{"id":4240,"date":"2014-02-05T13:35:54","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T18:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=4240"},"modified":"2014-02-05T13:35:54","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T18:35:54","slug":"dzul-dance-mexico-maya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/dzul-dance-mexico-maya.htm","title":{"rendered":"Dzul Dance – Mexico Maya"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dzulbyrojrodriquez_7cap\"<\/a>Dzul Dance
\nMexico Maya<\/em>
\nBaruch Performing Arts Center
\nFriday, January 24, 2014<\/p>\n

Mexico Maya<\/em> is a gorgeous atmospheric evening length concert performed in a unique artistic voice by Dzul Dance. Choreographed by Artistic Director Javier Dzul, the evening begins with an ancient Maya story and moves through works focused on contemporary Mexico, Cuba and America.<\/p>\n

Memories of Maya<\/em> tells a Maya creation story.\u00a0 Bird songs and drums play as dancer and aerialist Robin Taylor Dzul spins on silks high above the floor, her posture regal, like a creature of the jungle.\u00a0 Light filters in as if from beneath a thick canopy of trees.\u00a0 Dancers cross the floor, their movement low to the ground, their focus sharp with the awareness of what’s around them.\u00a0 Noriko Naraoka bourees on pointe and carries her arms with the grace of a wild bird.\u00a0 The women lay on their stomachs, arching their backs, raising their heads, their arms and legs swaying like branches on a tree responding to a gust of wind, their bodies moving like those of animals alert to the sounds of the forest.\u00a0 When the men lift the women, they seem less like partners and more like another exotic being with two torsos and multiple limbs.<\/p>\n

\"dzulphoto2byjustinlin_7cap\"<\/a>In the closing section, Dzul appears dressed only in bike shorts, hanging upside down on silks, personifying the forbidden fruit hanging on a tree.\u00a0 Contortionist Anna Venizelos works on the floor, the princess who will give in to the temptation of the fruit.\u00a0 As Dzul descends to earth, she wraps herself around him, his spirit entering her body which, according to legend, gives birth to the first human.\u00a0 In the hands of this company, the aerial tricks and the contortion is executed with such artistry and such heart that they seem intrinsic to the dance, helping it to move in unaccustomed dimensions.<\/p>\n

Memories of Mexico<\/em> is danced in festive costumes to a Cumbia beat.\u00a0 The faces of the dancers are intense with focus as they strike sharp poses.\u00a0 Then hips undulate and isolations complement the music.\u00a0 Again, we see the company performing lifts that are far from the beaten path, each one beautiful in motion and composition.\u00a0 The dance closes as the dancers all come together as if to create one wild entity.\u00a0 The familiar driving carnival drumbeat of Sergio Mendes’ Magalenha<\/em> fills the theatre for P’a chi<\/em>. Javier Dzul dances this piece alone.\u00a0 He is bare chested and he hardly travels, but his muscles dance, rippling in isolations along his back, curving in his shoulder blades, rippling in his torso and his arms.<\/p>\n

Memories of Life & Love<\/em> describes Dzul’s own personal journey out of the jungle and into Mexico.\u00a0 With Anne O’Donnell, he performs It Is Hard For Me To Forget You<\/em>.\u00a0 Ms. O’Donnell is lovely as she stands on a chair behind the seated Dzul, unfurling arms and legs to the accompaniment of piano music and words spoken about absence and longing.\u00a0 So much emotion is expressed through her body every time that she arches her back.\u00a0 A second woman joins them for The Air and The Wind<\/em>. The three work together as if they are one body whose breath rises and falls.\u00a0 With So Young An, Dzul dances Little Thorn<\/em>, an unusual and beautiful pas de deux in which An melts across his back and shoulders, her face pained with longing, her arms sometimes fluttering.\u00a0 Dzul leaves, and Ms. An performs Letting Go<\/em> alone on pointe,\u00a0 I am so moved by the emotion expressed through her body in big expansive movements and in smaller things, like a glance over her shoulder.<\/p>\n

Tension builds in Revolution<\/em>.\u00a0 The company is fierce and they dance with palpable intensity, which seemed to suggest the energy of the EZLN and the uprising in Mexico led by Indigenous peoples twenty years ago.\u00a0 The tension resolves into Mambo<\/em>, a sensual ballroom piece danced by Robin Taylor Dzul, Stephany Dzul and Nelly Patron with Javier Dzul.\u00a0 The women are sexy and flirtatious.\u00a0 Mr. Dzul starts out as a spectator, but is drawn into the dance.\u00a0 This piece is great fun and it shows a humorous light hearted side to the company.<\/p>\n

The music and spoken word narration for Thinking of You<\/em> is full of longing and heartache.\u00a0 Dressed in magenta, Robin Taylor Dzul steps on to a wood frame suspended on chains and she ascends.\u00a0 There is a floating celestial feel to her movement and the vocalist is nearly crying in sorrow.\u00a0 On the floor, Mr. Dzul dances with Ms. Naraoka.\u00a0 They perform this moody pas de deux separately, finally touching at the end of the song.<\/p>\n

The evening ends with Freedom<\/em>, which includes a breathtaking aerial performance by Mr. Dzul complete with falls from the ceiling which stop only inches above the floor.\u00a0 His sudden sharp flips backward, his drops, and the artistry of his choreography had the audience gasping.<\/p>\n

This evening affected me deeply.\u00a0 The dances transition seamlessly from tribal movement to modern to contemporary ballet on pointe before leaving the ground in breath taking aerial movement.\u00a0 Javier Dzul’s choreography and his company work with an uncommon honesty and kinship with the natural world. Dzul has lived an uncommon life, having been born and raised in the ancestral Maya lands of Campeche.\u00a0 In a recent interview he spoke of coming from a family of priests who preserve Maya culture. He grew up naked, among animals, as part of the earth, with the jungle as his house.\u00a0 When, as a young man, he moved into the formal dance world, he felt that the energy of his tribal dances didn’t connect with the audience.\u00a0 He went on to study ballet and modern dance, and to pursue a career performing the works of other choreographers.\u00a0 It was in the founding of his own company that he was able to bring together the sacred energy of indigenous dance and its reverence for earth with the beauty and expression of modern dance and ballet, and have it connect with an audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dzul Dance Mexico Maya Baruch Performing Arts Center Friday, January 24, 2014 Mexico Maya is a gorgeous atmospheric evening length concert performed in a unique artistic voice by Dzul Dance. Choreographed by Artistic Director Javier Dzul, the evening begins with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[560,555,557,556,559,558,561],"class_list":["post-4240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-anne-odonnell","tag-dzul-dance","tag-javier-dzul","tag-mexico-maya","tag-noriko-naraoka","tag-robin-taylor-dzul","tag-so-young-an"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4240"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4249,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions\/4249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}