Stephen Petronio premieres I Drink the Air Before Me for his company’s 25th anniversary. / Photo by Sarah Silver
Reduction and contraction seem to be everywhere you look in the performing arts as the economic crunch hits home. But for his company’s 25th anniversary, Stephen Petronio is allowing himself to think expansively. His rich, invigorating, windswept new full-evening work is performed by an expanded company—11 dancers plus himself—and he is certainly not stinting on his musical forces. Nico Muhly’s original score will feature not only the composer on piano and five other instrumentalists, but the 20-voice-strong Young People’s Chorus of New York City.
“I’ve been making larger works on companies all over the world, and I just thought, for my 25th anniversary, I want New York to see what I do on a bigger group,” the choreographer said recently before starting rehearsal. “I think it gives you a real visceral power.”
Among his far-flung projects are a full-evening work he made for Sydney Dance Company in collaboration with composer Nick Cave and an upcoming French commission, set for a June premiere in Montpelier.
But it’s with his own company that he has cultivated a distinctive voice that has made him a feisty, ever-intriguing mainstay of our city’s dance scene. His recent programs have tended to focus on suites built from smaller sections, but this time around he decided to think large-scale. His initial inspiration for the hour-long I Drink the Air Before Me was to draw from weather patterns and climate configurations.
“I decided I wanted to make an evening-length piece inspired by weather, the temporal elements. I’d been thinking about it a lot: There are so many visuals about weather, and so much to read about the elements,” he explained. “There’s a long tradition of it—from Moby Dick and “Old Man and the Sea,” to more extreme weather events (volcanic eruptions) and what’s going on in the world in terms of the globe disintegrating weather-wise.”
He and Muhly—the youthful, versatile and in-demand composer/conductor (whose film scores include The Reader)—plotted an arc for the work, encompassing eight sections and weaving through moods and levels of intensity ranging from calm and gentle to stormy and explosive.
During a recent run-through of the nearly completed dance, the layering and spatial ingenuity were evident, even in the workaday studio setting. The expanded ensemble allows Petronio to set duos and trios against solo figures, creating tension through texture. Early sections are meditative, unhurried and luscious in their spiraling, swiveling movement motifs. Throughout, the dancers (a heady mix of company veterans and bracing newcomers) amaze—shifting between intricate, precise footwork and expansive abandon that veers towards wildness. Muhly’s music accumulates layers of tension and urgency in its mix of piano, winds and strings.
Petronio took his title from The Tempest, which certainly has its share of storms. According to Petronio, the spirit Ariel—the embodiment of air, captive to Prospero and yearning to be set free—who says: “I drink the air before me, and return/or ere your pulse twice beat,” was an inspiration.
“I love that,” Petronio said. “I thought it was a good model to hold forward for the piece.”
Petronio himself will return to the stage to perform in the new work, but he remains somewhat cryptic about his appearance, other than to say that Cindy Sherman has designed an “amazing, crazy costume” for him, and that his appearance “will spill from the pre-show half-hour, with the audience coming in, into the actual performance. So there will not be a clear demarcation of the beginning of the show.
“What I didn’t want to do was come out and do the Alfred Hitchcock thing that I’ve been doing,” he explained. “Before I [went] offstage a couple of years ago, I was making appearances that were very brief. I’m feeing really good and really fit, and I thought, ‘I can do better than that.’ The question I’m really asking myself is, as I grow into the mature stage of my life, is: What’s my relationship to performing going to be?”
Always a sly, seductive performer, Petronio’s exploration of that matter will not doubt add a stimulating layer to his evocation of whirlwinds, vortexes and other volatile confrontations.
April 28-May 3, Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. (at 19 St.), 212-242-0800; Tues. & Wed. 7:30; Thurs.-Sat. 8; Sun. 2 & 7:30, $19-$49.
“I’ve been making larger works on companies all over the world, and I just thought, for my 25th anniversary, I want New York to see what I do on a bigger group,” the choreographer said recently before starting rehearsal. “I think it gives you a real visceral power.”
Among his far-flung projects are a full-evening work he made for Sydney Dance Company in collaboration with composer Nick Cave and an upcoming French commission, set for a June premiere in Montpelier.
But it’s with his own company that he has cultivated a distinctive voice that has made him a feisty, ever-intriguing mainstay of our city’s dance scene. His recent programs have tended to focus on suites built from smaller sections, but this time around he decided to think large-scale. His initial inspiration for the hour-long I Drink the Air Before Me was to draw from weather patterns and climate configurations.
“I decided I wanted to make an evening-length piece inspired by weather, the temporal elements. I’d been thinking about it a lot: There are so many visuals about weather, and so much to read about the elements,” he explained. “There’s a long tradition of it—from Moby Dick and “Old Man and the Sea,” to more extreme weather events (volcanic eruptions) and what’s going on in the world in terms of the globe disintegrating weather-wise.”
He and Muhly—the youthful, versatile and in-demand composer/conductor (whose film scores include The Reader)—plotted an arc for the work, encompassing eight sections and weaving through moods and levels of intensity ranging from calm and gentle to stormy and explosive.
During a recent run-through of the nearly completed dance, the layering and spatial ingenuity were evident, even in the workaday studio setting. The expanded ensemble allows Petronio to set duos and trios against solo figures, creating tension through texture. Early sections are meditative, unhurried and luscious in their spiraling, swiveling movement motifs. Throughout, the dancers (a heady mix of company veterans and bracing newcomers) amaze—shifting between intricate, precise footwork and expansive abandon that veers towards wildness. Muhly’s music accumulates layers of tension and urgency in its mix of piano, winds and strings.
Petronio took his title from The Tempest, which certainly has its share of storms. According to Petronio, the spirit Ariel—the embodiment of air, captive to Prospero and yearning to be set free—who says: “I drink the air before me, and return/or ere your pulse twice beat,” was an inspiration.
“I love that,” Petronio said. “I thought it was a good model to hold forward for the piece.”
Petronio himself will return to the stage to perform in the new work, but he remains somewhat cryptic about his appearance, other than to say that Cindy Sherman has designed an “amazing, crazy costume” for him, and that his appearance “will spill from the pre-show half-hour, with the audience coming in, into the actual performance. So there will not be a clear demarcation of the beginning of the show.
“What I didn’t want to do was come out and do the Alfred Hitchcock thing that I’ve been doing,” he explained. “Before I [went] offstage a couple of years ago, I was making appearances that were very brief. I’m feeing really good and really fit, and I thought, ‘I can do better than that.’ The question I’m really asking myself is, as I grow into the mature stage of my life, is: What’s my relationship to performing going to be?”
Always a sly, seductive performer, Petronio’s exploration of that matter will not doubt add a stimulating layer to his evocation of whirlwinds, vortexes and other volatile confrontations.
April 28-May 3, Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. (at 19 St.), 212-242-0800; Tues. & Wed. 7:30; Thurs.-Sat. 8; Sun. 2 & 7:30, $19-$49.
