New York Metropolis Middle, New York, NY.
February 21, 2026.
Lyon Opera Ballet returns to New York Metropolis Middle because the opening efficiency of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Pageant, a a number of week occasion with corporations dancing throughout NYC. Lyon Opera Ballet carried out two works: BIPED by Merce Cunningham, and Mycelium by Christos Papadopoulos.
BIPED, created in 1999, makes use of digital projection on a scrim in entrance of the dancers, of each shifting, rendering human kind in motion, in addition to abstracts shapes and objects. Sure projections had been created utilizing movement seize of precise dancers. Watching the piece in 2026 made me nostalgic for the early days of the web, because the projections jogged my memory of these early internet pages – though this was extra fastidiously constructed. Cunningham was a fan of integrating expertise into his dances, and had been doing so in some kind for the reason that late Nineteen Eighties. For BIPED, he utilized the software program he helped create, DanceForms, to help creating the choreography. Regardless of all of the expertise, I nonetheless loved the stay dancing probably the most. Watching the piece felt like an training in dance historical past, whereas being a related dialog about how a lot worth expertise provides to our lives and our artwork.
In a whole change of tone, the second work of the night time was Mycelium. Mycelium is the construction of a fungus, threadlike in its show, one thing that frequently expands and reaches for brand new types. Mycelium, the dance, behaves in the identical approach. All dancers are clad in easy black costumes and transfer as a gaggle, flowing along with teeny tiny steps. The group resembles a flock of birds, separate from one another, however united as an entire physique – shifting by way of the sky (birds), or throughout the stage (dancers). Watching this creation was meditative and wonderful. It epitomized the thought of people working collectively to serve the wonder and stability of the entire group. It was a mesmerizing finish to the night. Whereas not crammed with technical feats of dance, the dedication of the group to one another and to light activity at hand served as a reminder that dance is one a part of the pure world, if we will see it as so.
By Emily Sarkissian of Dance Informa.
