So much dance passes by dutifully—often aimlessly—but that is definitely not the case with Andrea Miller’s work. It seizes your attention and dares you not to get caught up in its delicious strangeness, fierce aggression and raw beauty. How did such a young choreographer, so new on the scene, discover such a strongly individual voice and ability to captivate and surprise with such sophisticated, persuasive power? You can ponder and marvel at the elegant oddity and delicious unpredictability of two works by Miller, this week and next at Joyce Soho. Her 10 dancers are an amazingly committed, intense group, judging from an advance look at excerpts from “Blush,” a world premiere, and “I Can See Myself in Your Pupil,” first seen last year. Much of the work involves tensed-up muscles and deliberately odd shapes, but Miller seems capable of finding austere beauty in the unexpected and potentially grotesque.
A trio of women stalk and stagger like exotic wild birds. One woman is swung with what seems like merciless ferocity between two men, held by a shoulder and the opposite leg. The aura of danger is palpable, but so is the focused intimacy of a brief, beautifully focused duet. Two trios, seemingly coexisting in separate realms, suddenly coalesce and realign into three duets.
Both works are set to a varied musical collage. Chopin, MIA, Balkan Beat Box, Radiohead and what sounds like a renaissance madrigal all coexist and somehow fit together. “I like to create scores where dancers don’t necessarily have counts. They have landmarks they need to get to, which gives them a lot more freedom of dealing with their physicality and each other,” Miller says during a phone interview.
Born to a Spanish mother and a Jewish father, Miller definitely felt her distinct identity while growing up in Salt Lake City (“at school, everyone was blond!”). She came to New York to attend Julliard’s dance program, graduating in 2004. While there, she had the opportunity to perform in works by Ohad Naharin, and was captivated by his movement. After graduation, he headed for Tel Aviv, where his Batsheva Dance Company is based, and joined the Batsheva Ensemble, which feeds into (and sometimes shares the stage with) the main troupe.
Naharin was just establishing his distinctive Gaga—a movement language and approach to choreography that he has found liberating and which has produced an amazing series of works in recent years. Miller describes Gaga as “a way of accessing movement and physicality, of using your intelligence to access sensations and different textures—using fantasy, imagery, imagination.”
Always interested in choreography, Miller was propelled in that direction through her experiences in Batsheva. “Because of the opportunities Ohad offered within his work to be creative. I found a new voice that I wanted to investigate,” she says. Soon after returning to New York in 2006, she met Francesca Romo in a workshop and immediately sensed she’d found an ideal collaborator. The two began working on movement, with no set goal in mind, and Romo became the mainstay of the now three-year-old Gallim Dance. (The company’s name means “waves” in Hebrew.)
“I feel like I’ve found somebody who can exactly understand what I have in my mind—the physicality that I envision—and she takes it so much further,” Miller comments. During the recent run through, Romo’s fearlessness and intensity were palpable. It’s thrilling to see a dancer who so completely inhabits and individualizes choreography. But from the moment Moo Kim led off “Blush” with an astonishing extended solo, it was clear that Miller inspires exceptional daring and openness in her dancers. It promises to be an exhilarating two weeks. Joyce Soho only has 75 seats, so plan accordingly.
Jan. 9 through 18, Joyce Soho, 155 Mercer St. (betw. W. Houston & Prince Sts.), 212-352-3101; times vary, $25.
