The Elks Membership, Newport, RI.
October 19, 2025.
Synchronicity within the transferring second – unstated connection – takes figuring out one another. But, once they’re referred to as to it, skillful artists can discover that deep figuring out shortly. Newport Modern Ballet has many new dancers this 12 months – seven out of an organization of 13 (together with two new trainees). But, within the firm’s 2025-26 Season Opener Creatures of Behavior, it appeared like they’d all been dancing collectively for years.
That cohesive high quality within the ensemble was one factor, together with all-around seasoned, considerate artistry, that allowed this system’s weighty themes to completely resonate: themes of habits patterns, intimacy, tender wildness and extra. The outcome was me leaving the venue with a mind chewing on huge questions and an aesthetic sense absolutely sated.
Along with the beneath, I loved re-experiencing Emily Baker’s Crushed (2025) and Danielle Genest’s Harbingers (2019). Baker’s work was within the good setting for its premiere this summer time, on an out of doors stage in lovely summer time climate, but I nonetheless very a lot loved its rigorous enjoyable this time. Harbingers is filled with nuances that go away interpretation open to particular person dancers, and it was fascinating to see two totally different dancers (Margot Aknin and Lauren Difede) method that for this restaging.
Ilya Vidrin’s If Solely served as a tenacious but additionally comfortable opener. Sarah Murphy and Nathan Crewe-Kluge stood dealing with one another, sharing weight and exploring the opposite by way of delicate gesture: a hand throughout a collarbone, over a shoulder, down an arm. The remainder of the ensemble additionally supported one another’s weight by way of resting heads on one another as they lay, curled with knees into chest, merely respiratory.
These parts of visceral help, tender contact, and kinetic exploration rang from this starting to the work’s finish. That exploration moved out throughout the area, in addition to advanced into that of the self (notably with Murphy’s persona): intriguing variations on the theme. Connection rippled because the ensemble took on Murphy’s motion phrase, the person impacting the collective.
All of those layers took their time to transpire; even when the tempo picked up, nothing felt rushed. That allowed me to soak up and respect all these layers, the plush which means therein, slightly than feeling like I used to be lacking issues. Additionally evocative was lighting of shiny strains breaking by way of shadow, like water refracting underwater (an aesthetic thought characterizing the backdrop as properly – clear visible confluence).
Reflecting Vidrin’s theme of the “shifting landscapes of intimate attachment”, pas de deux companions once more took the stage: receptive and easeful, but additionally assured and clear by way of each gesture and motion pathway. Again to ensemble sections, dancers increasing throughout the again with an exhale and opening the photo voltaic plexus once more with an inhale, that assembly of the comfortable and robust remained. That almost all usually characterizes built-in, pleasing motion, but right here additionally supported the theme of the complexities inside intimacy, the big selection it will probably include.
Later, dancers moved and gazed collectively, all dealing with stage proper: collectively assembly an out of doors power. Extra inwardly-directed motion adopted – surfacing one other intriguing duality, that of the interior and outer. Vidrin sought to discover the “delicate stability between habits that anchor us and people who entice us.” That had me interested by the work’s repeated gestures that had been extra internally-directed, smaller and fewer athletic; how a lot did they anchor, and the way a lot did they entice, the work’s personas?
Because it resulted in a full-circle to the start, with the pas de deux pair standing dealing with one another once more, that query felt poignant – to not be answered proper then, however to be contemplated and marinate within the unconscious.
If the work had been to be developed additional, I’d be curious what might occur if a number of the jerkier and extra accented actions had been refined, lessened, or eradicated solely; they didn’t resonate with me as a lot as different qualities therein. But other than that, along with such probably wealthy which means, the work absolutely happy my visceral and visible senses. I hope to see extra from Vidrin quickly!
Mark Harootian’s Acquainted Weight got here second to final, a daring and indelible kinetic exploration of “unhealthy habits and the feelings behind the wrestle to finish them.” Dancers gathered from one – the commanding, but additionally easeful Grace Byars – to a complete ensemble. They picked up her motion vocabulary, and I instantly felt a way of weightedness in how they moved.
Additionally they danced with exact accent and form of gesture. Spiraling turns provided distinction. The dancers expanded into area with energized reaching, nearly with a way of craving – that which might come up after we grasp at methods to cease doing what we all know doesn’t serve us. The rating (from Yann Tiersen) – extremely rhythmic and filled with mysterious, nearly mournful tones – supported all of these qualities.
I additionally seen breath as a key theme. Dancers noticeably stuffed with breath as they expanded and emptied of it as they launched power inwards. At different moments, they drew splayed fingers earlier than their faces as they inhaled. Respiration is pure and computerized, but we are able to additionally be taught to elongate it, easy it out, ease it. Would possibly we additionally do the identical with our habits – people who we discover ourselves in naturally, but also can form to be extra supportive of wellbeing?
Different actions had been extra athletic – entrancingly so. Two dancers criss-crossed the stage, devouring area and time in motion. Turns and lengthening by way of bigger ensemble sections did the identical, even all of the extra so by way of extra dancers. Typically bettering ourselves takes tenderness, and at different instances arduous work.
As with If Solely, there was additionally each inwardly and outwardly directed motion: that expansive athletic motion on the one hand, and complex gestures near the physique on the opposite. On this work, that spectrum had me interested by how a profitable journey to enhance our habits requires outward help, however a number of the work we assuredly should do ourselves.
On an aesthetic stage, these totally different qualities grew to become all of the extra impactful by way of distinction. The ensemble labored collectively to understand all of them, attuned to one another as they danced by way of extremely complicated motion pathways and formation adjustments. It was one other premiere that each happy my senses and bought my psychological wheels turning – success!
Danielle Genest’s Nest closed out the work: each soothing and enervating, evocative and summary. Dancers started in a good circle, arms fluidly reaching to provoke motion. They quickly moved outwards to fill the stage, with timing and spacing such that the various layers at hand felt accessible.
A typically frenetic, but in the end extremely organized multiplicity hummed – one thing that additionally characterizes nature. The ensemble vibrated with the unstated connectivity inside an organism, social unit, or bigger ecosystem. Genest described a theme of nests, which “symbolize household and group” – and that imagery rang true (akin to within the opening round clump).
I additionally noticed water imagery, from dappled blue costumes to gestures transferring lengthy and fluid like seaweed. Timing ebbed and flowed just like the tide: altering but additionally steady, in addition to cyclical. That’s a typical conceptual path for this firm, and fittingly sufficient – being based mostly in Rhode Island’s “metropolis by the ocean.” Both approach, as soon as once more the dancers demonstrated a notable attunement to one another – in timing, shaping, formation, and extra.
Lauren Difede danced a memorable solo of each enlargement and gestural intricacy – lifting in a easy flip after which grounding to sensitively gesture. The inventive maturity that she’s developed over her years within the firm was on full show. Genest’s choreography, for its half, was as satisfying as ever: viscerally eager, receptive, and tenacious with out something like flash for its personal sake.
The interconnected wild group gathered once more in the direction of the tip, circling to recreate the tightly-knit nest. Nature’s cycles – of waking and sleeping, of delivery and demise, of motion and stillness – persist. This work was a poignant reminder of that fact, notably after the deal with the complexities of feelings, relationships, and habits in this system’s earlier works. No matter occurs in any of that, the solar rises once more.
Certainly, the dancers collectively lifted the photo voltaic plexus and gazed skyward because the piece closed. Maybe in that persistence of life is hope…unquenchable hope. Dangerous habits can appear intractable, relationships are arduous, and intimacy can really feel fairly abstruse – but the brand new days maintain coming. So let’s not take something too critically; life goes on.
All of that conveyed primarily by way of our bodies in area: live performance dance really is a marvel. Thanks for that reminder as properly, Newport Modern Ballet! Significantly with this nearly absolutely new firm, I very a lot stay up for seeing what else they must share – this season and past.
By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.
