about the company andrea miller

ABOUT THE COMPANY
Founded in 2006 by choreographer Andrea Miller, Gallim Dance is a New York City based company that
quickly caught the attention of the dance community. Known for its visceral movement that creates a
lasting resonance in the conscience, Gallim Dance includes an award-winning ensemble of dancers
hailed for their quick wit, morphing physical quality, and technical virtuosity. Miller's works are
simultaneously kinetic and intimate expressions of the self and its dialogue with identity, sensuality, and
search of meaning. Called “gloriously quirky” by Dance Magazine, the company has performed in many
premiere venues and festivals including The Joyce Theater, Jacob's Pillow, Spoleto Festival USA, New
York City Center!s Fall for Dance festival, Chutzpah! Festival, Joyce SoHo, White Bird Dance, Movement
Research at Judson Church, Dance Theater Workshop, Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater, and The Juilliard
Theater among others. This fall, Gallim Dance will bring repertory works I Can See Myself in Your Pupil
and Blush on tour throughout Europe.
ANDREA MILLER
Andrea Miller (Artistic Director and Choreographer) Born in
Salt Lake City, Miller began dancing with Virginia Tanner's
Children's Dance Theater. She continued training with
Ernestine Stodelle and Gail Corbin in the HumphreyWeidman technique in Connecticut, and received her BFA in
Dance from The Juilliard School in 2004. Upon graduating,
Miller joined Ohad Naharin's Ensemble Batsheva in Israel.
Miller has performed as a guest dancer with Cedar Lake,
Limon Dance Company and The Buglisi Dance Theatre.
In 2006 Miller returned to NYC to establish Gallim Dance, a
contemporary dance company that supports the creation
and performance of her choreography. As a sought-after
choreographer, she has been noteworthy for her use of
extreme physicality – movement that shifts between
explosive power and contained tension – and the ability to create an experience where the dancers
appear at the edge of their limits. Her work reveals a unique coexistence of classicism and primitivism,
with remarkable idiosyncrasies that seamlessly weave together the elegant and the raw in a breathtaking
surprise.! Miller was awarded the 2009 Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship in Choreography, 2010
Princess Grace Foundation USA Works in Progress Award, and was selected for Dance Magazine's 2009
"25 to Watch." Her work has been presented throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. In addition, Miller
is the associate choreographer with Noord Nederlandse Dans.
Recent commissions include Dance Theater Workshop (January 2011), Ballet Bern, Ballet Hispanico,
Noord Nederlandse Dans, The Juilliard School, Installation at SportMAX, Hubbard Street 2, Zenon Dance,
Hedwig Dances, Arts Umbrella, New Jersey Dance Theatre Ensemble, Repertory Dance Theatre, Body
Traffic, Northwest Dance Project, and Springboard Danse Montreal. In collaboration with Alexandra Wells,
Miller helped to develop Movement Invention Project, a summer program for improvisation and movement
invention. She has taught movement and created works for dancers and actors at The Juilliard School,
SUNY Purchase, The Ailey School, Sarah Lawrence, Wesleyan, SUNY Brockport, and Stella Adler.
WWW.GALLIMDANCE.COM | 304 W 75TH ST 6B NEW YORK NY 10023 | [email protected]
DANCER BIOS
Francesca Romo (Associate Director, Dancer) was born in London, England. She trained at the Royal
Ballet School and the London Contemporary Dance School. After a one-year apprenticeship with Richard
Alston Dance Company she formally joined the Company from 2003–2006. Francesca is currently
undergoing certification in Gyrotonics, and she currently teaches in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Francesca
co-founded Gallim Dance in 2006.
Bret Easterling (Dancer) is a native of Palo Alto, California, founding member of Teen Dance Company
of the Bay Area, and original member of Tap Kids. He received his BFA from The Juilliard School along
with the Hector Zaraspe Prize for choreography. In August of 2010, Bret will move to Israel to join
Ensemble Batsheva.
Caroline Fermin (Dancer) attended the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts throughout her youth
and later The Juilliard School (BFA). In 2007, she joined James Sewell Ballet in Minneapolis. She has
received grants and awards for her work, and she created a project to bring young artists to work in New
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Troy Ogilvie (Dancer), a New Jersey native, began dancing at Miss Carol!s School of Dance, and
continued her training with New Jersey Dance Theatre Ensemble and the Princeton Ballet School. She
graduated from The Juilliard School with a BFA in 2007 and went on to perform Twyla Tharp's "Deuce
Coupe" with The Juilliard Ensemble at City Center's Fall for Dance. Troy also dances with Sidra Bell
Dance New York.
Dan Walczak (Dancer) is originally from Buffalo, New York. After receiving his BFA in Dance from SUNY
Brockport in 2007, he moved to New York City and began dancing with Coriolis Dance Inc. as well as
Keith A. Thompson's Dance Tacticts Performance Group. He joined Gallim Dance in 2008.
Jonathan Windham (Dancer) is a native of Colorado, and studied dance at SUNY Purchase. After
Purchase, he worked with American Repertory Ballet and Terra Firma Dance Theatre. In 2006 he joined
DASH Ensemble. He recently performed as a soloist in the premier of "The Magistrate and the Miller's
Wife" choreographed by Ramon Oller at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Arika Yamada (Dancer) is a native of Detroit, and trained at The Joffrey Ballet School and at The Nutmeg
Conservatory. She continued her training with Elena Tchernichova, later enrolling in The Vaganova Ballet
Academy. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Arika has performed with Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, at
City Center's Fall for Dance with Twyla Tharp's "Deuce Coupe," and at Twyla Tharp's Gala at The Joyce
Theater.
WWW.GALLIMDANCE.COM | 304 W 75TH ST 6B NEW YORK NY 10023 | [email protected]
REPERTORY
WONDERLAND
With Wonderland, Andrea Miller investigates pack mentality as an inherent,
potentially dangerous, element of human instinct. Deeply inspired by Chineseborn artist Cai Guo-Qiang’s installation Head On, Wonderland uses imagery
from war, sports, and communication to reveal the psychological and physical
episodes of a herd acting as a unit through the uncoordinated behavior of selfserving individuals. Although pack mentality is a natural and ongoing strategy
in the animal kingdom, among humans it can indicate a vicious, desensitized
brutality and disregard for humanity – a concept that is at the core of
Wonderland.
Running Time: 45 minutes!
Dancers: 8-12
Premiere: 2010
Choreography: Andrea Miller
Lighting Design: Vincent Vigilante
Costume Design: Jose Solis
Music: Orchestra Barzizza, Chopin, Black Dice, Tim Hecker, Joanna Newsom, Sebastien Agneessens
and Kyle Fische Remix courtesy of the Alan Lomax Foundation
BLUSH
Blush is an invigorating work dense with emotion and physical exertion that
investigates themes of intimacy, instability, and the desire of the heart and
body to feel strongly. Movement that draws from Butoh and ballet is set to a
collage of music ranging from Chopin to Electro Punk. As the battlefield of the
dance develops, six dancers covered in white paint increasingly make contact,
with harsh movement leading to achingly tender moments. The raw, explosive
power of Blush exposes the dancers! rosy flesh and the ecstasy of their
existence.
Running Time: 50 minutes
Dancers: 6
Premiere: 2009
Choreography: Andrea Miller
Lighting Design: Vincent Vigilante
Costume Design: Jose Solis
Music: manyfingers, Andrej Przybytkowski, Radiohead, Chopin, Kap Bambino, Arvo Part, Wolf Parade
“One is never so dangerous as when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.” Marquis de Sade
I CAN SEE MYSELF IN YOUR PUPIL
I Can See Myself in Your Pupil is an exhilarating suite of dances set to a highly
eclectic score of music from Israel, Mexico, Australia, Italy, and Denmark. With
a cast of seven dancers wearing a rotation of colorful costumes, Pupil follows
the development of two cells through the organization and chaos of evolution,
through the possibility of intimacy, the formation of humor, and the danger of
aggression. Based in wildly quirky and demanding movement, each vignette
shifts into strange and beautiful worlds of play and introspection.
WWW.GALLIMDANCE.COM | 304 W 75TH ST 6B NEW YORK NY 10023 | [email protected]
Running Time: 60 minutes (can be arranged for various durations from 15-60 minutes)
Dancers: 7
Premiere: 2008
Choreography: Andrea Miller
Lighting Design: Stephen Petrilli
Costume Design: Andrea Miller, Idan Yoav
Music: Pimmon, Chris Clark, Manu Chao, Trio Mediæval, Beirut, Tony Gatliff, Elliot Goldenthal, Balkan
Beat Box, Bellini
NACI
Nací, meaning “I was born,” has its roots in Andrea Miller!s SephardicAmerican heritage. The work explores ideas of displacement and alienation of
communities similar to that of the Spanish Jews during the centuries
surrounding the Inquisition, and how marginalization impacts the creativity and
durability of these modern communities. Nací emerged from Miller!s
experiences observing two major religious celebrations that occurred
simultaneously while she was in Spain in 2009. Created for eight dancers, the
piece is filled with highly physical, grounded movement that conveys the
community!s ongoing quest for their roots and a place to call home.
Running Time: 20 minutes (can be arranged for various durations from 15-45 minutes)
Dancers: 8
Premiere: 2010
Choreography: Andrea Miller
Lighting Design: Nicole Peirce, Vincent Vigilante
UNWRAP THESE FLOWERS
Unwrap these Flowers is an explosive work set to pop and electronic songs, teeming with images of
sexually tinged violence that reflects Miller’s voluptuously polyglot choreography, which mixes classical
and street idioms.
--Claudia La Rocco,The New York Times
Running Time: 25 minutes (can be arranged for various durations from 15-45
minutes)
Dancers: 8-24
Premiere: 2009
Choreography: Andrea Miller
Lighting Design: Nicole Peirce, Vincent Vigilante
Costume Design: Fritz Masten
Music: Chopin, Tim Heckter, Benoit Poulard, Black Dice, Osvaldo Golijov, Sebastien Agneessens, Kyle
Fischer
DUST (For Jack)
A duet for two men about loss!and the vain attempt to save someone who is
dying.
Running Time: 15 minutes
Dancers: 2
Premiere: 2009
Choreography: Andrea Miller
Music: Arvo Part
WWW.GALLIMDANCE.COM | 304 W 75TH ST 6B NEW YORK NY 10023 | [email protected]
SNOW
Snow captures a woman's capacity to be simultaneously fearless and to be
broken, to shift between heroism and hopelessness. The dance is partially
inspired by Orhan Pamuk's novel, Snow.
Running Time: 10 minutes
Dancers: 4
Premiere: 2007
Choreography: Andrea Miller
Music: Tony Gatlif
RECOMBINATION
Recombination is an exploration of the distortion of structure based on a single
phrase of movement. The phrase reveals accumulating movement and
dancers with each subsequent repetition. At a certain moment, the process
undergoes a mutation, a cancer grows into the choreography; form erupts into
chaos; highly structured material evolves into pure improvisation with its own
reinvented rules.
Running Time: 12 minutes
Dancers: 2+
Premiere: 2007
Choreography: Andrea Miller
WWW.GALLIMDANCE.COM | 304 W 75TH ST 6B NEW YORK NY 10023 | [email protected]
Wonderland
Andrea Miller’s Wonderland. Photo: Gallim Dance
68
TIM MARTIN is seriously moved by Andrea Miller’s new work at the Joyce
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DANCE REVIEW
Strutting Versatility and a Wild Pack Mentality
By ALASTAIR MACAULAY
Published: August 10, 2010
Two companies — Gallim Dance and Camille A. Brown & Dancers — shared Monday!s bill at the Joyce
Theater. Each made a strong impression (and won an ovation), with both choreographers displaying
thoroughly stageworthy, professional pieces. The differences between the two were also striking, in ways
that made the comparison stimulating for any audience.
Whereas Ms. Brown presented five pieces, Andrea
Miller, who founded Gallim Dance in 2006,
presented just one, “Wonderland.” Ms. Brown
shows vividness and versatility; Ms. Miller shows
large-scale unity without loss of complexity or
intensity. Ms. Brown!s five works leave you
pondering whether she can handle longer ones or
whether she is mainly a miniaturist; Ms. Miller!s
“Wonderland” — which, despite its real merits, has
an unfriendly tone that doesn!t immediately
encourage viewers to go back and investigate its
mysteries — makes you question how much
variety she is capable of. Both companies perform
with remarkable force and assurance.
“Wonderland,” which lasts 44 minutes and was receiving its world premiere on Monday, is surely the most
original work of the program. Ms. Miller often rearranges her 12 dancers so that there are frequently three
different, usually unequal, units onstage, moving in different ways. There are various dramas, but also
other people watching those dramas, and often a second drama begins alongside another. The onstage
audience changes, moves, re-forms.
Some of these dramas are different kinds of freak shows: one dancer does barefoot ballet cartoonlike,
another lip-synchs while performing bizarre acrobatics, and a third deforms into stunted and crippled
shapes. This third one is the most painful to observe, but there!s an element of conscious performance
about it: she!s suffering, but she!s playing it for all it!s worth.
And each of these — there are others — are watched by a team of observing eyes. Thus “Wonderland”
becomes a striking example of the play-within-a-play device, in which entertainment, grotesquerie and
physical suffering are all addressed to onstage viewers. What!s ambiguous, though, is how Ms. Miller
feels about this; there are many moments when we feel a gruesome relish for the rendering of life as a
spectator show.
A news release says that “Wonderland” focuses on the pack mentality. “Although moving as a pack is a
natural and ongoing strategy in the animal kingdom,” it continues, “among humans it can indicate a
desensitized brutality and disregard for humanity — a concept that is at the core of "Wonderland.! ” But
even though this helps to explain how “Wonderland” proceeds, it sounds more humane than how
“Wonderland” feels in the theater.
The dancers are androgynously costumed. In some sections men do one thing and women another, but
their sex is seldom the point, and in the opening scene the dancers suggest horses and riders, as well as
other animals. Throughout, they show a through-the-body commitment — verging on wildness — that
adds a certain visceral excitement to this multilayered production. What is most memorable is the
dancers! fervor and undeviating commitment, especially in the most bizarre passages: which makes
“Wonderland” both stirring and chilling.
Photo: Ruby Washington/The New York TImes
Bravo for the 4 Women at the Joyce
Posted by Wendy Perron
Monday, Aug 16, 2010!
Gutsy. Wild. Smart. Original. All four of these
young choreographers fit those words: Andrea
Miller, Camille A. Brown, Kate Weare, and
Monica Bill Barnes. Each has her own
unmistakable voice. Strong voices, spirited
voices. Sure there are influences that are easy
to see. Brown"s group pieces have heavy Ron
K. Brown influence (she danced with him for
years). Andrea Miller"s work is in the Ohad
Naharin vein (she danced in his junior company
in Israel). But everyone comes from
somewhere.
After all the public worrying about the dearth of
women choreographers, or the obstacles blocking the paths of women choreographers, this last week at
the Joyce was cause for celebration. There have been attempts in the past to “nurture” women
choreographer. Both Kate Weare and Camille Brown have been on the receiving end of different womenhelping-women initiatives. But those attempts, in my memory, were nowhere near as successful as this
programming. Sometimes it just doesn"t work to be too deliberate about these things.
The Joyce did a great thing by choosing four who have some notches on their belts. Another thing they all
have is humor—which makes a big difference. It distances them from the reputation of earthbound
solemnity in modern dance. Monica Bill Barnes can be really funny—giddy actually. Her Another Parade
makes miraculous fun out of James Brown"s Sex Machine song. Kate Weare has more of a sharp wit than
belly-laugh humor. Camille Brown has expert comic timing that"s Broadway-worthy. And Andrea Miller"s
sheer bizarreness can, well, if it doesn"t make you laugh, it can take your breath away.
Another plus is that these choreographers do NOT sprinkle their work with gratuitous split kicks, the way
many of the crossover choreographers (those who are both ballet and modern) do. They value
expressiveness over obvious displays of virtuosity.
There were moments in these two evenings that I didn"t like witnessing at all, where I actually winced.
And yet I still say kudos to the choreographers for doing it. One was the excessive backbends that looked
painfully contortionist in Wonderland, performed by Andrea Miller"s company, Gallim Dance. Another was
when Kate Weare Company"s Leslie Kraus used her head to knock a guy (whose embrace had just given
her pleasure) hard—HARD—in the abdomen, again and again.
Andrea Miller's Wonderland Bursts Through at the Joyce
And so does Camille A. Brown
By Deborah Jowitt
Wednesday, Aug 18 2010
At several moments in Andrea Miller's terrifying new Wonderland, you almost expect the 12
members of her Gallim Dance to raise their fists in a victory salute. And the performers in Camille
A. Brown & Dancers, sharing Joyce programs with Gallim, all but do so. In very different ways,
these two choreographers grapple with power.
Miller—influenced by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang's installation, Head On, with its prowling,
flying wolf packs—explores the phenomenon of the herd and its dangerous cousin, the mob. The
four men who begin the piece stamping in the dark establish the language of Wonderland. They
keep low to the ground, their legs spraddled and bent, except when they jump and double up in
the air. They roll, dive, and crawl, their hips and torsos swinging oddly when they walk. Jose Solis
has dressed all 12 in various fierce, trim dark-gray outfits.
Who are they? The horses suggested by the initial sound of galloping hooves? Cave dwellers not
averse to cannibalism? Reader, they are us. They strut, high-kick, prance, and pose with
fearsomely exaggerated grins. They imitate emerging leaders, choose "stars," devise rituals, and
struggle. Seven different sound-music sources and dramatically changing lighting by Vincent
Vigilante chart these creatures' repeated attempts to fall in step or join the game—whatever it is.
The only flaw in this astonishing piece is that Wonderland's escalating cycles of unquestioned
ambition seem to go on for a long time; several times, you feel the piece might end. But Miller is
brilliant at creating a charged, variegated space and tasks that strike you in the gut: the crawling
herd that gradually turns into a pyramid as the followers clamber onto the leaders, then collapses;
the lone man who catches—or doesn't—those who hurl themselves at him; the men who rush,
one by one, to replace a previous fallen victim (even as the others dance doggedly among them).
The performers attack the killer movement with devastating power, all refinement eroded by the
lemming mentality. Solos emerge from the fray (those for Troy Ogilvie, Arika Yamada, and
Francesca Romo are only some of the remarkable ones). Showing weakness is not allowed. In
what may be the most gripping moment in Wonderland, Paula Alonso pushes up into a backbend
and tries to walk in that stance, collapsing into crippling contortions but soldiering on. No one
copies her.
Fab Four
by Susan Yung
August 20, 2010
In the New York dance world, August means rest—very little happens on the familiar stages. But you can
sample a number of outdoor performances, as well as the New York Downtown Dance Festival, and
some presentations in the sprawling Fringe Festival. So the Joyce Theater!s presentation of four
choreographers in early August came as a well-timed surprise. It!s a disservice to categorize the four as
young and female, because no matter their age or gender, they produced engaging work that surely
garnered new fans. Two companies were paired on two different programs; I caught a matinee with
segments by all four.
Kate Weare!s Bright Land featured live bluegrass music
onstage, played crisply by The Crooked Jades. The
band!s presence combined with the evening-out
costumes worn by the four dancers to create a special
occasion social setting. The dancers worked in pairs,
dropping little bomblets of movement punctuated with a
spearing raised leg, and paused to spool the next phrase.
The sense of drama was heightened when two dancers
watched the others and clapped aggressively as if
goading them on, and when one pointed accusingly at the
others.
Camille Brown loves gravity, as her ten dancers proved in
City of Rain. Dressed in blue and brown costumes
evocative of Star Trek, they bent their knees deeply as
energy surged up and down their torsos. It didn!t seem to
matter to them whether they were standing or lying, they
always had a firm sense of foundation and preparedness.
Brown creates intriguing, dense patterns with very
physical movement that seems to define the comfortable
limits of what today!s performers should be capable of
doing. And which they clearly relish doing.
Gallim Dance, and guest dancers from Ballett Bern,
performed Andrea Miller!s Wonderland. It was inspired by
the artwork of Cai Guo-Qiang, evident in the bold
theatricality and striking tableaux, but it hit a crazy range of emotional notes. Jose Solis designed the
intriguing costumes—seafoam green, pieced tops and briefs and headgear with strategic holes to allow
protruding tufts of hair. In its several sections, the powerful, grounded movement shifted in mood from
absurdist exercise, to vaudeville, to a cutting portrait of a rock star and a groupie. The effectiveness of this
particular storyline was clear from the rapt attention paid by the audience.
It was hard to imagine what would constitute a “closer” of a dance after three impressive works. But an
excerpt of Monica Bill Barnes! Another Parade fit the bill. Four women sported clothes as armor—pleated
skirts and thick turtleneck sweaters that they pulled off one shoulder to let loose. Loaded gestures, like fist
pumps, hip swivels, and expressions, primal, or of exasperation or boredom so common in conversation,
were performed rapid-fire to a mix of songs. The sum total was a manic, delightful, precisely calibrated
concatenation of gut feelings and intellectual winks. If you missed this run, try to catch all of these
promising choreographers! upcoming engagements, where and whenever they may be.
Andrea in !Wonderland"
Choreographer Miller prepares her latest work for the Joyce
By Susan Reiter
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Her appearance and demeanor
may appear charming, even
demure, but Andrea Miller!s
dances are nothing like that. They
revel in a visceral power and are
unafraid to venture into ferocity
and ugliness. Bodies are more
likely to flail and collapse than to
display an elegant line. In her two
major full-evening works, 2008!s I
Can See Myself in Your Pupil and
the following year!s Blush, one can
sense a young choreographer
unafraid to tap into primal
sensations and to ask her dancers
to expose their nerve endings. But
at the same time, her work is
elegantly disciplined, and amid the tension there are helpings of wit and playfulness.
Pupil and Blush had their premieres at the 75-seat Joyce Soho, but for her latest work, Wonderland,
Miller!s company, Gallim Dance, is moving uptown to the main Joyce Theater in Chelsea. She is working
with a larger group of dancers, a dozen, this time around, and a steady stream of recent commissions—
Ballet Hispanico and the Juilliard School (from which she graduated) presented new Miller works last fall,
and the winter found her in Switzerland, working with Ballet Bern—has kept her busy, and it was not until
late spring that she could really get her dancers into the studio to create the new work.
But the powerful inspiration for the 45-minute dance had asserted itself during an earlier vacation in
Spain. When Miller entered a Barcelona gallery where the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang!s installation
Head On was on display, her imagination was immediately engaged. She was confronted with 99 wolves,
charging forward towards a glass wall. In 2008, when it was on view at the Guggenheim, Cai described it
in an interview as “an installation that depicts certain type of collective behavior or collective heroism,
tragic and brave.”
For Miller, Head On generated an interest in exploring the idea of pack mentality and its adaptations
within human instinct. “I felt like he did it in a way that was so powerful and simple—and it wasn!t preachy.
Aesthetically, it was beautiful. It took up such a huge space in this gallery. From the doorway, you saw
these wolves coming in. It was beautifully executed and it made a lot of sense to me. I just got the
courage to try something myself that spoke to issues that I felt were prevalent. His installation is very
political, because it was created and installed in Berlin. The wolves are crashing into a wall that!s the
same height and width as [the] Berlin Wall. He was making a political commentary on a similar historical
moment, where people fell into line, following leaders who were leading them astray. The fact that he
used glass is a comment; our walls are invisible, but some of the most dangerous kind of walls.
“Pack mentality usually refers to animals. Humans have this instinct as well, socially. I try to play with
what!s the line between how animals act in pack mentality, and how humans behave.”
Wonderland!s cast of 12 is double the size of Blush. “Part of the desire to use a bigger group is because,
in the commissioned works that I!ve made this year, I!ve worked with many dancers. Juilliard was 24,
Ballet Bern was 15. I was really enjoying that, having those kinds of numbers that I can play with. But I
think ultimately it!s because that piece that it!s inspired by was so overwhelming—those 99 wolves. I felt I
needed a sense of mass, a crowd.”
At a recent preview of excerpts at the Jewish Community Center, the surging energy of the ensemble,
divided into subgroups each with its own purposeful mission, was already intense. Rehearsing at Juilliard
a few days earlier, Miller!s focus was on a single dancer, as she crafted a solo section for Arika Yamada.
With the expansive studio!s mirror covered and no sound heard, Miller, Yamada and Francesca Romo (an
original Gallim member who is also associate director) worked with meticulous attention to detail. Miller
identified each moment!s purpose, shape, attack and impact with vivid descriptions and imagery, as
Yamada tried to match the bracing clarity and vivid resonance the sequence had as Miller moved through
it. As the hour drew to a close, she danced it to the music, which sounded like a robust 1930s big band,
and it came alive with new power and assertiveness.
The music for Wonderland is a collage selected and edited by Miller. “I listen to a lot of music, all the time.
I like to be responsive to the environment. If I hear a sound, and that really works, I!ll use it.” Her musical
selections for Pupil, excerpts of which will be on the opening program of City Center!s Fall for Dance
Festival, are particularly astute, ranging from Balkan Beat Box to Puccini.
Wonderland is on a shared program next week with Camille A. Brown, who will offer five short works on
her half of the evening. On alternating evenings, Monica Bill Barnes and Kate Weare share a program.
Photo: Martina Langmann / Photo by Philipp Zinniker, courtesy of Ballet Bern
LIFE UPON THE SACRED STAGE
No Leader of the Pack
By Mary Sheeran
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Everyone seems to have a take on
Wonderland lately. That includes Andrea
Miller and her Gallim Dance company, who
appeared last week at the Joyce Theater to
perform Miller!s powerful, witty, and terrifying
work of that name. A dozen dancers in gray
(imagine Victoria!s Secret washed to death)
writhed, crawled, and romped together in a
series of disturbing vignettes, during which
one person frequently broke off to be different,
albeit just as disturbing, for just a moment.
In the beginning, a few of the dancers pranced
about the stage as horses, with the sound of a
cheering audience and children laughing in the background. After loping and lolling about, they pranced
off as another group emerged from the dark singing the "Mickey Mouse Club" theme song. M-I-C-K-EY…Why? I suspect it wasn!t for the usual reason.
The stage remained a dark place where the performers smiled, danced gregariously to jazz, and shook
their heads outfitted with clumps of hair sticking out of skull caps – all kinda gothic you know, and like,
pretty intense. Their dancing comprised shaking, writhing, and rolling – usually violently, but they were
also usually cheerful and triumphant as they went about their circus life. Once a dancer shook vigorously
and all the sweat rippled out in fierce droplets, and the woman next to me gasped. It was, yes,
magnificent. We could have gasped all night. There was plenty else that was fascinating to react to. One
dancer stepped on another!s palms-up hands as if they were stilts; a group formed a pyramid, which
immediately crumbled. A dancer slid to the floor and lay there. Dead? Who can say? But it must have
looked like fun because soon, one by one, they gleefully copied the death. Happy lemmings all. A
performer lip synched to a song in a high register – it was eerie, like Joel Grey in Cabaret. A leg and foot
served as a microphone, and the song, “Do you want to ride with my pack?” laid down the theme!s track
with a force that made you need to look away, if only you could. They crawled toward us in the darkness,
reached out, and conformed to the expectations of the music that kept changing for no reason, other than
it changed – from Chopin (who didn!t make the program notes) to Black Dice and Joanne Newsome,
among others.
As they moved on all fours around the stage, their stage being an exhausted one, I thought of the Donner
Party, and that this exhausted, dark group would just give up and eat each other, and then most likely turn
to us, with all smiles. At the end, one dancer fell like a wounded horse and struggled to get up as the pack
cheered. The dancer pushed on, fell, rose again, and injured beyond remedy, struggled on.
Miller claims this disturbing, witty vision of pack mentality, was “deeply inspired” by an installation of artist
Cai Guo-Qiang!s in Barcelona called Head On. The comparison between that artwork (easily found on the
Internet) and Wonderland is to understand why Miller needs to point our attention to Head On in relation
to her work. Cai!s work completes it. Head On shows 99 wolves charging and hitting into a glass wall. Cai
describes it as “an installation that depicts certain types of collective behavior or collective heroism, tragic
and brave.” After seeing Head On, Miller wanted to explore pack mentality in the human instinct. Of Cai,
she added, “I felt like he did it in a way that was so powerful and simple. He was making a political
commentary on [an]…historical moment where people fell into line, following leaders who were leading
them astray.” That is Miller!s interpretation, and her understanding of such behavior shows little
redemption, courage, or hope.
Wonderland is certainly a strong piece and one responds viscerally to the remarkable, muscled
imagination that created it. It!s certainly darkly funny. Powerful yes, simple no. Miller!s response to a piece
that had an immediately perceived beginning, middle, and end was to construct a forty minute piece
where we only have the middle of the pack. We!re not sure how it started, and we know the ending may
be bad – as Julie Jordan sings in Carousel – and we can!t get out of the middle and aren!t sure we want
to. Was that the point of Miller!s Wonderland? Well, it made me think, and that!s good, except if we!re in
the middle of the pack, do we want to think? Well, there!s a thought.
danceviewtimes
writers on dancing
!
Camille A. Brown and Andrea Miller at The Joyce
By: Kathleen O!Connell
August 16, 2010
Camille A. Brown and Andrea Miller may have shared a bill as
part of Gotham Arts! week-long, four choreographer showcase
at the Joyce, but their work had little in common—except for
the things that made it worth watching. Both women
demonstrated that they can fill a stage with viscerally exciting
movement without resorting to bogus pyrotechnics. Both deftly
integrated touches of the vernacular or gestures from other
styles into their own vocabulary to make their theatrical points.
Both made dances that were smart, focused, and bracingly
confident: they!re young choreographers still mastering their
craft, but there!s nothing tentative about their work.
Miller—an alumna of both Juilliard and Batsheva!s junior
troupe—founded Gallim Dance in 2006. “Wonderland,” her
latest work for the company, opened the program. The title
might as easily refer to the legendary Massachusetts dog
track as to the kingdom of the absurd Alice finds at the bottom
of the rabbit hole. For 45 minutes, 12 dancers in deliciously
demented, semi-sheer gray costumes rocket all too gleefully
around the stage in a game of follow–the–leader that grows
more sinister with every iteration.
Miller took her inspiration from Chinese–born artist Cai Guo-Qiang!s installation Head On, in which a pack
of 99 wolves flings itself at glass wall, only to tumble into writhing heap at its base. The image, she tells
us, prompted her to investigate the dangers of pack behavior in humans, among which she numbers
“desensitized brutality” and a “disregard for humanity.” Ignore what she says: “Wonderland!s” arresting
images are more nuanced and exacting than her stated subject matter—a truism already done to death—
might lead you to expect.
“Wonderland” is plenty unsettling. Its inhabitants are cartoons: inanely jaunty, untroubled by the laws of
physics, and apparently immortal. They mug like bubbleheaded showgirls to 30s Italian swing and do a
spastic, madhouse take on “Les Sylphides” to Chopin. But the Looney Tunes antics invariably give way to
more sinister episodes. In one, a man blithely lip-synchs to Joanna Newsom!s “The Book of Right On”
while two others manhandle him through an acrobatics routine: are they his sidekicks or his tormentors?
In another, a group of dancers bent over at the waist with hands clasped behind their lowered heads bop
along to the beat like a conga line of detainees.
Most chilling are the episodes that hint at genocide. Two dancers briskly drag the limp bodies of their
erstwhile companions across the stage and pile them into competing heaps. When they reach the last
body—which still twitches with a few signs of life—they begin to fight over it as if they were stacking
corpses on commission. (The dead soon leap to their feet to egg on the adversaries.) After an interlude of
contra-dancing the dancers form a line and walk to their slaughter with bovine complacency. One by one
they softly crumple the dancer in front of them down onto an ever-growing pile of bodies, then step up to
take his or her place in turn.
The formal beauty of Miller!s patterns
throws her images into seductive relief:
they!re as beguiling as they are creepy.
She!ll send the entire troupe skimming
around the stage in a big, exultant circle,
then swirl them off into two or more groups
moving in contrasting but visually
complementary ways. And no one ever
dances alone: groups coalesce around
soloists to either follow their lead or coerce
them into conformity.
Jose Solis! terrific gender-bending
costumes—suggestively tricked out with
hints of boning and leather—could be
profitably marketed as the Mad Max:
Beyond Thunderdome line of yoga apparel. With shocks of hair protruding from slashes in their tight-fitting
caps, the dancers look like the jolly spawn of Woody Woodpecker, Johnny Rotten, and a kewpie doll.
Solis! designs further what is either Miller!s boldest move or biggest miscalculation: distancing us
emotionally from the action on stage. We feel neither sympathy for the victims—they and their plight are
just too darn weird—nor animus for their cartoon antagonists. It!s as if Miller wanted to get our hearts out
of the way so that she could engage our intellects.
“Wonderland!s” biggest shortcoming is its episodic structure. We get something new with every change in
the music, but the score—as carefully chosen as its components seem to be—sounds like an iPod set on
shuffle. The movement is in keeping with the music, but there!s no overarching build in tension, and no
release. The work still reads as a satisfying whole and its ambitions will reward repeated viewings.
Andrea Miller and Camille A. Brown, New York
By Apollinaire Scherr
August 11 2010
Modern dance is too removed from popular dance and too slippery in its meanings to enjoy mass appeal.
But in the past couple of decades, even mid-sized appeal has eluded most women choreographers here
– despite work that shares the drama and poetry of its more successful male counterpart. So it is a
welcome development that the 470-seat Joyce Theater is devoting the week to four young women
dancemakers – two per night.
Since establishing her company in 2006 after three years in Israeli Ohad Naharin!s junior troupe, Andrea
Miller, at a wee 28, has caused a clamour of anticipation. Though flawed, Wonderland makes clear why.
The 50-minute premiere for 12 takes The Rite of Spring through the looking-glass, where the Chosen One
becomes several – and none of them dies. Instead they vamp. Smiling widely, these exhibitionists take
turns hogging the spotlight of a tawdry circus or a vaudeville revue while the rest of the tribe serves as
spectators, props or victims.
Wonderland was inspired by the installation artist Cai Guo-Qiang!s “Head On”, in which 99 stuffed wolves
hurtle in a long arc through the air to smash into a glass wall. In the dance the wall never materialises, but
bodies do pile up and the movement is animal. It isn!t wolf, though; more earthbound bird haplessly
flinging itself into the air.
Wonderland isn!t helped by its structure – one variation after another – but this is a small price to pay for
moves so psychologically ripe and full of mystery.
WOMEN!S MOVEMENT
Leigh Witchel
August 12, 2010
About the only thing the four choreographers sharing a stage at the Joyce this week have in common is
that they're all women. Their dances range from dark to light and bluegrass to jazz -- and they're worth
checking out.
There are two alternating programs. Andrea Miller, whom
Dance Magazine named one of its "25 to Watch" last year,
got off to a good start Monday with "Wonderland." The
longer work is as much theater as dance, but Miller has
plenty to say.
The piece is uncertain, sometimes dark or sardonic. An
airborne Jonathan Windham, a skinny dancer with arms
like tentacles, ingeniously turns lip-syncing into
choreography.
Jose Solis' inventive costumes are topped by headgear
that makes the cast's hair look like manes. Are the dancers
humans or centaurs? It's hard to describe exactly what
happens in the gray, smoky landscape, but what we see is
intelligent and interesting.!
GALLIM DANCE: disparately cohesive, in an organic sort of way
Andrea Miller!s dance co. performs inside out and reverses
by: Gervase Caycedo
May 29, 2010
Gallim Dance, the four-year-old baby of Andrea Miller, based in New York and causing quite a stir
as a "contemporary" new dance company, refused to be boxed in Friday night at their opening
Spoleto performance of I Can See Myself in Your Pupil at the Memminger. From the moment they
opened Act I, the seven company members (three men and four women) bounced up and down
in opposite intervals and three rows. The understated effects of their movements were deliciously
pleasing. To say they danced outside the box would be too cliché for this troupe. It would be more
appropriate to say they dance inside out. Miller, of course, prepared us for this when we
interviewed her several weeks ago. She explained that the Gaga technique that she learned in
Israel with Ensemble Batsheva, under Ohad Naharin, taught her that it was possible to "take what
[she] had inside and put it outside." We had no idea she meant this literally, yet it is obvious
onstage at various points throughout this performance. When you're wondering how she even
thought of some of these movements — so much of it seems exploratory — her secret lies in
carefree improvisation that is crafted into our small notion of what "dance" is.
In Act I, dancer Troy Ogilvie is left alone on the stage after all the synchronized bouncing. She
moves fluidly, one isolation at a time, and it is clear that her body is capable of much more, but
she's trying something new. She could be any young organism discovering movement and
learning to walk for the first time, but it is more animal than human. She discovers the endless
possibilities of her limbs, while the audience watches, fascinated, the whole theater silent. She
doesn't know anyone else is watching. It's like watching the Discovery Channel. Ogilvie is a
bendy one, so few twisty contortions are out of her reach. She finds a way to waddle on her
haunches, looking strangely like a frog, and then flips onto her back instead and travels this way,
reminiscent of a crab. She is trying to end up alongside another woman who has walked onto the
stage and sat down, back to the audience. The determination of this organism to make a
connection is palpable. This is a repeated theme throughout Pupil — making a connection. There
is also the understated hilarity of it all that also courses through the vignettes of this show.
In one male/female duet, a romantically linked couple fights the inexplicable magnetic force that
draws them together, even as they are struggling to push each other away. A particularly riveting
female quartet seems to be about four imperfect women in the same place at the same time all
feeling the same thing, while pulsing aboriginal music thumps in the background. The four move
as if desperate and trapped — one breaking out spastically and then needing to be restrained by
the other three — and at other times as if drugged and resigned, marching around like beautiful
zombies. The sense that each woman moves of her own accord, the way no section is meant to
be danced in perfect unison, reaffirms Miller's unorthodox experimental style.
There is a sense of fast-forward, rewind, and repeat in many pieces — a methodology. One
dancer stands in a spotlight onstage wiggling and writhing with the music, and after a count of
eight, another will join. The seven of them eventually make two whole rotations of this
spontaneous convulsing, creating the image of a conveyor belt of people shaking out their sillies.
It looks just as comical as it sounds, and it doesn't get old. Shortly, it is reversed and the dancers
leave the stage one at a time, the same way they came on, and a lone man stands in the
spotlight once again. This sense that the cycle has been repeated and completed is feltat many
different times, and it is just one more delightfully cohesive element that makes Miller a stellar
choreographer. The whole body is recruited for every single movement made by Gallim Dance.
They make no bones about jumping about the stage like a crew of crazies, but it's the individuality
of each dancer that keeps you glued to every leap, kick, and lunge around the stage. And the
Memminger stage, while we're on this topic, is the perfect setting for this company. It is deep and
open with a blank, white backdrop that catches the dancers' shadows (an intended effect) and
enhances the experience. The theater is intimate enough for us to see their facial expressions
and hear them sing or grunt and groan in unison, but large enough to sustain the feeling that you
are watching — no, gaping — at the dancers behind the glass. Not unlike the zoo.
Miller is clearly not about the
monochromatic, whether that
applies to music, colors,
costumes, or choreography. In
the curtain-less wings they add
and subtract sequined jackets,
neon-pink leggings, earth-toned
short onesies, and lime-green
dresses. Nothing is particularly
sexy nor ostentatious.
Everything screams: "Here I am;
take me or leave me."
It is rare for more than two
people to be synchronized
onstage at any one time. Each
dancer is unique in how they
dance and what they feel, but they all share a common goal and come together at surprising
moments to remind us of this. Imagine you placed two young children on a trampoline and told
them they could play whatever they liked for as long as they liked without parental supervision,
and then you hid in the bushes and watched. They would be simultaneously jumping with
abandon, yet exploring their own newfound capacity for height and lightness. This is how it feels
to watch Gallim dancers together, their kinetic energy flying every which way.
The music is refreshing, quirky, exotic, and tribal. We spoke to Miller after the show and she
explained she had just made some music changes to the first act and felt it was too identifiable.
But unless you are a music aficionado, this soundtrack will surprise and delight you. With songs
heavy, tantric, desperate, and also comical and classical, it is impossible to become bored.
Balkan Beat Box comes at just the right time towards the end of Act II, and in this female trio, it's
apparent how much freedom Miller must feel while choreographing. The three women move
wildly, with a sort of spastic grace that is free and honest and devoid of pretentiousness. At points
throughout the song, the girls sing along, their mouths opening wide, over-pronouncing each
syllable in a way that is comical, yet without meaning to be. They never stop moving, weaving
their movements together for seconds at a time. The women look like petulant children running
around the stage, arms and hands flailing, one woman leaping loosely, another making herself
dizzy. Sometimes they step lightly, on tiptoe. They cannot hide their expressiveness.
This is when we remember something else Miller explained to us about Pupil. She told us that
what she was feeling while choreographing this show was "explode." Her dancers just might
explode if they push and reach any further. Take your eyes off the stage for one second, and you
will miss something.
Our critic goes bananas for Gallim Dance I Can See Myself in Your Pupil
Posted by Stephanie Barna on Sat, May 29, 2010
When Gervase Caycedo filed her review of
I Can See Myself in Your Pupil this
morning, she couldn't contain her
enthusiasm for the dance company's
performance:
Show was awesome.
A++++++++++
Note: I DO understand we don't allot that
many pluses to any show. I was just
showing my enthusiasm, that's all.
Dance Review | Juilliard School
Juilliard Students in Mixes and Matches
By CLAUDIA LA ROCCO
Published: December 10, 2009
“Unwrap these Flowers” … an explosive work
set to pop and electronic songs, and teeming
with images of sexually tinged violence. This
combination reflects Ms. Miller’s time in the
Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin’s junior
company, as does her voluptuously polyglot
choreography, which mixes classical and
street idioms.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Dance Review | Ballet Hispanico
Under New Management, a Troupe Stretches Its Boundaries
By GIA KOURLAS
Published: December 6, 2009
Andrea Miller, inspired by her Spanish and
Jewish American background, offers the
more complex “Nací,” an exploration of
Sephardic culture for eight dancers that
probes ideas of displacement and
alienation. Broken into five short scenes,
“Nací” tests the performers’ ability to
employ weight and tension while
preserving a sense of buoyancy. While
pliés frequently root the dancers to the floor, in spirit they are plagued by a sense of
rootlessness. While they drift together and apart with an awkward languor, there is a
frequent image of a performer drooping over and holding the palms forward. But in the
final scene, a unison group dance, the sense of togetherness seems rushed; the
narrative, loose as it is, stunts the inventiveness of the movement.
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
Ballet Hispanico: Members of the company performing Andrea Miller’s “Nací,” at the Joyce Theater.
Dance
Andrea Miller and Jean-Claude Gallotta at Jacob’s Pillow
By Deborah Jowitt
Friday, July 17th 2009 at 1:58pm
"Can anything be new, original, private?" asked the
spoken text that accompanied Twyla Tharp's 1971
The Bix Pieces. Not really. Yes. (Certainly both
those answers could be true when considering the
marvelous Bix.) I can see-or think I see-how Andrea
Miller, the founder (in 2006) and sole choreographer
of Gallim Dance, was influenced by her training in
the Humphrey-Weidman technique and her two
years in Ohad Naharin's Tel Aviv-based Batsheva
Dance Company. Like Humphrey's choreography,
Miller's movements for Blush acknowledge the
weight of the human body and the ways in which
emotion affects and perhaps deforms it. The six
dancers who perform it at Jacob's Pillow (Bret
Easterling, Caroline Fermin, Moo Kim, Troy Ogilvie,
Francesca Romo, and Dan Walczak) have the
intensity and brute force of Naharin's company
members, as well as their sensitivity to the body on
an almost molecular level. Yet Miller, only five years
after graduating from Juilliard, gives signs of being
a most original artist.
Blush happens in a kind of arena. A white line the
height of a dancer's waist runs across its three black walls. The brilliant lighting designer Vincent
Vigilante has placed a number of lamps close to the floor, and the atmosphere is predominantly
dark and smoky, except when a row of amber footlights at the back of the stage shines in our
eyes and, near the end, when bright light suffuses the Doris Duke Studio Theater. Costume
designer José Solis garbed Gallim's three women in black trunks, ankle warmers, and semibackless, loose-sleeved tops. The three men also wear ankle-warmers, but they're barechested, and their trunks have a loincloth-like drape. White paint covers their hair and bodies;
through it, the performers' natural skin tones emerge, but only dimly.
The opening solo performed by Kim to Pimmon's "Introduction to the Sound of a Kiss"
establishes the physical language of this fierce tribe. He often strikes a movement and holds it.
He hunches his body, walks in a squat, scrabbles backward on the floor, and wrenches his torso
around with single-minded precision. He walks the fine line between stability and loss of
balance, whirling into fall after fall. Already in this solo, Miller's grasp of dynamics is evident, as
is her ability to vary big, whole-body movements with smaller, isolated gestures. This is
surprising, given the fact that her dancers are almost always in control, never limp.
The world they inhabit is a strange one. What at first seems recognizable is skewed into
unfamiliarity. While the women dance in unison-turning their heads briefly to look at us as they
walk away, legs wide apart, knees bent-the men crawl on their sides along the back of the
stage. When the men do rise, they walk for a while like zombies to the music's deep, muttering
drums and high, hissing beat (Andrzej Przbytkowski's original composition). That's when the row
of yellow lights comes on. There are rules in this community. Three pairs, every now and then
changing partners, dance in shifting three-part counterpoint. Moves such as those that Romo (a
co-founder of the company) and Fermin show us (while the other four lie in a row, supine and
arching, between us and them) reappear later in the piece. In the midst of duet with Kim, Ogilvie
lifts a hand to smooth her hair; the gesture appears casual, but when she repeats it a few
seconds later, it assumes the status of a choreographic element.
The behavior of these people is almost always single-minded. And hostile without being
malevolent. Easterling and Walczak shove Ogilvie stiffly and rapidly back and forth between
them as if this were a job they had to do. Later, and for a long time, these two men grapplewrestling, embracing, knocking each other to the floor. Easterling springs onto Walczak's back,
puts a hand over his eyes, and calls out directions while Walczak carries him along. Their duet
is punishing, but it finishes as it began, with the two of them in dim light, their arms around each
other, running in a circle.
It's intriguing that some of the activities in Blush are accompanied by Chopin piano pieces and
Arvo Pärt's haunting "Fratres." The sweetness of the music hints at what might lurk beneath the
daunting rituals. In the end, without warning, the lights brighten, and to Wolf Parade's "I'll
Believe in Anything," the terrific performers thrust their arms into the air, burst into plodding
leaps, and dodge around in foolish games. This is as happy as they get. By now, sweat has had
its way with the white paint, and their skin is indeed blushing with life.
Photo by Karli Cadel
Bret Easterling and Dan Walczak of Gallim Dance in Andrea Miller’s "Blush."
Details:
Gallim Dance
Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, Massachusetts
July 8 through 12
New York
TIM MARTIN catches Gallim
Dance, New Chamber Ballet and
Julian Barnett
S
ome time ago I thrilled to Ohad Naharin's works,
which were presented by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. He had arrived long before the
performances to inculcate the company with his
Gaga approach that leads dancers to originate
and infuse movements using an emotional source. I was
impressed with how authentic the company's performance
was and remembered this as I watched Blush, a work by
Andrea Miller, an alumna of Ohad Naharin!s Ensemble
Batsheva. The impact of this piece is so powerful - and the
dancers perform so urgently, so intently about things that,
while hard to verbalise, are so essential to our being - that
it's hard to leave the show without feeling changed, that
one must somehow stop wasting time with petty things
and act upon the vital elements in life. I came away thinking how Miller had taken what she learned from Naharin
and brought it to the next level. If Blush is any indication,
Naharin has spawned one of the next great choreographic
voices.
Miller has assembled an excellent company, Gallim
Dance, which is crucial to the success of a piece like this.
The movements will not work on a cast that has less commitment to, well, I was going to say 'to the steps they're
dancing', but that's not quite it. It's really more 'to the event
they are incarnating'. When this work is performed, important
things are being revealed and it requires fervent performers
who are hyper-present.
They're a remarkable bunch. The work calls for lean,
strong bodies, not just because of the technical demands,
but because of the extreme nature of the topics Miller covers. These are people working through big challenges, both
mental and physical, there are battles to be fought and fears
to be confronted - these momentous foes find worthy adversaries in these dancers. They're costumed in spare, black
outfits, which I would call sexy but it's really the performers
themselves who exude the sex appeal - that, and a sense
of combat-readiness - dress them in anything else and you
would still sense their raw physicality and the lithe brawn of
their bodies. They are all skilled technicians but there is no
sense of artifice, no self-conscious technique to distract from
the gut-level way they render Miller's vision.
If you've ever seen Butoh dancers in their white body
paint, picture that make-up but at only a 10% dusting. As they
dance and sweat and partner, the white make-up rubs off their
bodies and onto their costumes. Where it rubbed off from their
skin, I saw battle scars; where it smeared on their costumes, I
saw the dishevelment of garments torn in the fray. While there
were moments of doubt, for the most part I saw these characters as invincible heroes who would inevitably succeed. The
company's co-founder, Francesca Romo, was fierce, fearless,
fearsome, the epitome of what was called for in this work.
Her confidence, and sometimes even aggressiveness, were
inspiring to watch. She commands the stage with her tenac-
Gallim Dance in Blush. Photo: Gallim Dance
ity, whether engrossed in partnering or staring out into the
audience — a device Miller used on a number of occasions.
At times it was something close to a confrontational glare, at
others it was more a peering out in quest of something. In all
cases it created a connection between audience and performers that made everything they were dancing feel even more
pertinent.
Dancer Jason Fordham was also noteworthy. One is
easily drawn in by him - you become a voyeur, fascinated
by his internal focus and quiet machinations - but then, once
you're in close, he can cut loose with a torrent of arcing limbs
and you find yourself caught up, getting well-thrashed by his
vehemence. He's a strong and grounded partner and though
I've been dwelling on the power and impact of this work, there
were also quiet episodes of intimacy and vulnerability which
he and Romo created during their duet work. I don't mean to
point out just two of the dancers: the entire ensemble - which
included Mor Gur Arie, Caroline Fermin, Moo Kim, Troy Ogilvie and Dan Walczak - was of the highest calibre and every
one of them brought an immediacy to his or her performance,
making Blush both visceral and alive.
M
iro Magloire, artistic director of New Chamber
Ballet, presents dances in a low-tech format.
The studios at City Center are elegant, but
they are studios nonetheless: folding chairs, no
lighting effects, no curtain. He compensates by
presenting well-trained dancers and lavishing us with excellent musicians.
Choreographer Deborah Lohse opened with Two, a duet
DANCE EUROPE
May 2009
63
!
Dance in Review
sing along with Wolf Parade, dispersing
randomly only to suddenly propel themselves
into motion again. Suddenly they look filled with
purpose and intention — and Ms. Miller looks
like a choreographer finding her own voice.
ROSLYN SULCAS
By ROSLYN SULCAS
Published: January 11, 2009
GALLIM DANCE
Joyce SoHo
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By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | January 20,
2009
NEW YORK!
Working with a powerful creative figure is a
mixed blessing for artists who want to be
creators too. The problem bedeviled more than
one generation of ballet choreographers in and
after the Balanchine era; today it is figures like
William Forsythe and Ohad Naharin whose
highly individual, complex ways of moving
dominate a new generation of dance-makers.
Andrea Miller, whose Gallim Dance opened at
the Joyce SoHo on Friday night, danced with Mr.
Naharin’s Ensemble Batsheva (the junior
division of the Batsheva Dance Company) for
two years. And on the evidence of her new
“Blush,” she obviously absorbed (as any decent
student would) a great deal of his approach and
aesthetic.
Like much of Mr. Naharin’s work, “Blush” is set
to a bewildering range of music (Chopin and
Radiohead enter the mix) and features a highly
physical movement style that buckles torsos and
lashes limbs in exhilaratingly illogical fashion.
The six dancers are excellent, the movement is
inventive and Ms. Miller’s way of weaving
groups together and teasing them into smaller
units is often impressive. But the structure of the
piece, with blackouts ending one section after
another, feels arbitrary, and there is no sense of
emotional accrual over the course of the work;
just one highly charged moment after another.
Almost at the end, however, “Blush” suddenly
takes on its own identity as the dancers leap into
stomping crouches, heads thrown back as they
The most interesting of the younger
choreographers I saw, Andrea Miller, was doing
two weeks at the Joyce SoHo with her Gallim
Dance company. I Can See Myself in Your
Pupil, the older of the two works in the repertory,
was an explosively physical piece for eight
dancers, the kind of thing that bursts out of
artists sometimes as they embark on their
choreographic adventures. Later, looking at a
DVD of the piece provided by the company, I
realized Miller has the gift of structure as well as
expressive movement.
It's the movement, really, that's so absorbing at
first: bodies fully committed to streaking through
space, spreading out into wide jumps and
spiraling leaps, then teetering and stretching
until they fall heavily off balance. In duets and
trios the dancers partner one another roughly,
tugging and butting and punching at each other,
then sidling up in tight, awkward clinches.
The music and the lighting change abruptly and
unpredictably, from shadows to glare, desperate
words to pop klezmer. The dance too, spazzed
from fight to flight, pursuit and capture to
thrusting out and yanking open and ecstatic
release.
!
At first ‘Blush’
by elizabeth zimmer / metro new
york
JAN 16, 2009
Years of first-rate technical training and
experience have not managed to squash Andrea
Miller’s creative spirit. Her new “Blush,” to a
score that collages several centuries of
compelling music, displays an almost painterly
command of movement, a choreographic
Esperanto that draws on traditions as diverse as
ballet and butoh.
Several of the excellent performers share
Miller’s Juilliard pedigree; one, the Korean Moo
Kim, began as a street dancer in Los Angeles
and morphed into a modern dancer. The name
of the young troupe means “waves,” in Hebrew,
and waves are what she’s making.
The 50-minute “Blush” starts slowly, with a solo
for a guy in black martial-arts trunks, in a square
outlined in white inside a black box ringed with
footlights.
Three women, at once glamorous and
vulnerable, tough and tender, pick their way in
on half-toe. It takes a long time for anyone to
actually connect, but when they come the
interactions startle: two men sandwich a woman;
a couple, nestled together neck to neck, falls to
the floor.
The scene feels like purgatory, or a battlefield,
or a fashion runway. Wherever they are, these
beautiful people never get comfortable; they
keep us, and themselves, on their toes.!!
"As it stands, I Can See Myself in Your Pupil
remains the work of an unabashed and talented
Naharin disciple who could likely be his
choreographic successor."
-Danciti Review
"...This is one to see."
-Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, Dance
Listing
NYC Dance Happenings- Gallim Dance
Posted: Monday, January 12, 2009
Gallim Dance
By: Ashley L. Mathus
Andrea Miller!s company, Gallim Dance, is nothing short of extraordinary. Dance
Magazine named Andrea Miller one of the “25 to Watch” in its January 2009 issue; not
only did we watch, we were transfixed. Founded in 2006, Gallim Dance is a NYC based
company known for its “kinetic and intimate expressions of the self and its inner mosaic
of weaknesses, desires, and struggles.” Miller!s evening length work, Blush creates,
regurgitates and weaves fiery choreography within a world we only can wish to be a part
of. Seven dancers, three females and four males, dance like they mean it for a non-stop
sixty minutes. Can!t it be forever?
Blush opens with a solo by Moo Kim. Agile and fierce, Kim has no limits- his arms leave
behind trails of momentum while his body pops with aggressive vigor. Gallim!s refreshing
choreography and intricate body language stimulates and entices, while multiple sexual
innuendos and alien-like postures integrate human instincts and classic techniques.
Each dancer jumps like it!s their last chance, twisting and jiving without emoting attitudes
of immortality.
Francesca Romo, Rehearsal Director and co-founder of Gallim Dance, appears to be a
creature from another planet. Her obtuse body angles and alluring face toys with our
emotions as we are brought into her enigmatic world. Swinging like a child and balancing
like a circus performer, this London native jolts her body with a Tasmanian force. Romo
squirms through partnering duets and trios, pops her torso like an Olympic athlete,
jiggles with a smile, and exuberates a sense of aliveness unseen in a dance company in
years.
Lighting designer, Vincent Vigilante, creates a tense and foggy atmosphere, illustrating a
stage of dim anticipation. An eclectic array of musical genres, including M.I.A.!s “Hussel”
(Featuring Afrikan Boy), Wolf Parade!s “I!ll Believe In Anything”, and Radiohead remixes,
are nothing short of genius. Miller!s unexpected decisions leave mouths agape, taking on
the element of surprise and successfully transitioning her sectionized choreography.
Though these songs (compositionally) have very little in common, Miller!s vision enables
the music to adapt to contorted backs and outstanding explosive movement- fashioning
a delicious bag of goodies. Observing the shifting attitudes with each musical choice,
one witness!s pure enjoyment embodied by the performers, no matter how difficult, fast,
or random the choreography may appear.
Gallim Dance is performing Blush and I Can See Myself In Your Pupil at the Joyce SoHo
until January 18th. Please visit joyce.org for ticket prices or gallimdance.com for more
information about the company. We promise you, you won!t be disappointed.
http://mygreenblanket.blogspot.com/2009/01/nyc-dance-happenings-gallim-dance.html
DANCE | MAY 2008
Gallim Dance Company's I Can See Myself In Your Pupil: A Review
by Margaret Fuhrer
When working in small blackbox theaters, dancers
are confronted with a necessary choice: acknowledge
audience members, who are near enough to touch, or
find a way to erect the proverbial fourth wall. The
latter seems to be in vogue right now. Most
contemporary dancers, when working in intimate
venues, gaze glassy-eyed over the heads of onlookers.
But not the members of Gallim Dance Company,
which premiered founder Andrea Miller’s I Can See
Myself in Your Pupil in the 74-seat Joyce Soho.
Apparently the title was meant literally; Miller must
have told her dancers to pick out members of the
audience and stare them down. Rarely have I felt so
nakedly or seductively watched.
Miller, a Juilliard graduate, has danced for the past
three years with Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. Her movement vocabulary, which
juxtaposes athletic explosiveness with articulate, dancerly variations on everyday
movements, is plainly influenced by the work of Batsheva director Ohad Naharin. And like
Naharin, Miller is endearingly unpretentious, cutting moments of thick seriousness with
humor. But Miller is more theatrical than her former mentor. While Naharin’s works look
deliberately unaffected, as if his dancers woke up moving that way, Miller’s dancers are
self-consciously putting on a show. I Can See Myself In Your Pupil feels like a cabaret: it is
performed, to an audience and for an audience.
The cabaret analogy is useful, too, in that it describes the work’s circus-like quality. Miller
and her six dancers (most Juilliard and/or Batsheva alums) go through several costume
changes, sing along with their music, and are dramatically lit, often by oh-so-theatrical
footlights. The pace is breathless. Brief dance sketches whiz by like cars on a train—linked,
but distinct.
Press materials described Pupil as “inspired by the humor, fantasy and awkwardness of
intimacy,” but rarely did the dance imply relationships between dancers, or even involve
touching. If this work is meant to be introspective, it is a self-conscious introspection;
most of Pupil’s energy stems from its dancers’ relationship with the audience. In the
evening’s centerpiece, Snow, the cast’s four women (Miller, Francesca Romo, Troy Ogilvie,
and Belinda McGuire) walk haltingly forward, their bodies in profile, arms raised
uncomfortably behind them like broken wings, as Tony Gatlif’s track screams, “It’s an
emergency—an emergency! Emergency!” This is an anguished moment, an illustration of
some inner turmoil—yet the women’s heads are turned towards us, their eyes searching
us, almost smirking. “Isn’t it beautiful?” they seem to ask. “I dare you to enjoy my
delicious suffering!”
Miller is even better when she’s funny. The second half of the show opened with the cast
shaking, twitching, and fidgeting good-naturedly to Balkan Beat Box’s skittish “Meboli,”
like kids on a sugar high—perfectly silly. And Miller is not afraid of slapstick comedy,
either. A duet for Romo and John Beasant III to another Balkan Beat Box song, Cha Cha,
has the zanily (or perhaps drunkenly?) desperate Romo throwing herself on, at, and
around Beasant, who would rather strut penguin-like about the stage alone. When he
stumbles backwards to the floor, she launches herself at him and ends up suspended
upside-down on his outstretched legs; yet even from this inconvenient position, the
single-minded Romo is able to find Beasant’s face with her hands and caress it before he
kicks her away. This was the closest Miller got to her stated “awkwardness of intimacy”
theme, but the whole episode still felt audience-dependent, propelled by our gleeful
tittering.
Pupil is as audacious and fun as it is unsettling. Though still unmistakably influenced by
Naharin, Miller is beginning to develop an appealing choreographic voice of her own. And
Miller’s cast is hypnotic in its unmitigated commitment to her work. If I must be watched,
I want these dancers to be the ones watching me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margaret Fuhrer is a dancer, choreographer, and graduate student in the Cultural Reporting and
Criticism program at New York University.
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CONTACT
Andrea Miller, Artistic Director
[email protected]
Irena Tocino, Executive Director
[email protected]
Chelsea Goding, Company Manager
[email protected]
914.844.9253
Emily Sferra, Director of Operations
[email protected]
Michele Wilson, Development Associate
michele@gallimdance,com
Evan Namerow, Director of Marketing and Public Relations
[email protected]
Francesca Romo, Rehearsal Director
[email protected]
BOOKING
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New York, NY 10019
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Julia Glawe, Senior Vice President, Director
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[email protected]
(212) 994-3500
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United Kingdom
Johanna Rajamäki, Dance Manager
Tel: +44 (0)207 957 5862
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[email protected].
!
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