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It's always delightful heading to The Joyce Theater for a matinee presentation. The air was crisp and theater warm this last Saturday. Swiss lead and based company Philippe Saire took over the stage featuring five male dancers. The piece, Lonesome Cowboy, focused on varying aspects of masculine identity. In five sections (as I counted), the dancers changed outfits ranging from military garb, to jeans, to kilts while participating in typical 'meat head' activities: wrestling, competing, making offensive gestures, combative arguing, etc... Only about three times was the audience witness to softer, compassionate, moments of tenderness. Unfortunately, these moments were too few and far between. Each section became too similar to the one before, creating a lack of depth in both the choreography and messaging. A trio featured in the last quarter of the piece was quite beautiful and for me is where the piece started; it was more developed, growing from previous simple and gestural phrases into more emotionally complex and choreographically interesting statements. From this point on, the piece became less about "this is what manly men do" to "there's something more to why men may over-masculate themselves."
It's also worth mentioning a beautifully designed set by Sylvie Kleiber. A sandbox of sorts containing chopped bits of rubber (?) took up the whole stage, creating a crystallized landscape. With the dancers thrashing about, the set highlighted both a sense of dirty roughness, as well as moments of cleansing and resetting.
Once the snow storm has settled this week, head over to The Joyce this weekend and check out Tango Fire...it's sure to warm you up a bit! For more info, visit www.joyce.org.