AUDIENCE REVIEW – DANCES WE DANCE HARMONIC DISSONANCE
NOVEMBER 20-23, 2025
at the MARTHA GRAHAM STUDIO THEATER – NEW YORK CITY NY (READ PROGRAM)
The performance of Dances We Dance at the Martha Graham Studio Theater was, by far, the finest presentation of dance I’ve seen in a long time. In the present dance world, which is being Influenced by the competitive presentations on TV, how refreshing it is to see dancers on stage in a world that doesn't strive for personal recognition or technical glory. After all the Art of Dance is not a sport deserving medals. Over the years, Francesca Todesco's dancers have developed into some of the finest of performers of their generation. They don’t look at the audience but guide us into realms of captivating emotions; with heads thrown back, they thrust their hearts upwards achieving balances that go beyond relevés, obtaining suspensions that hold the moment in purity. They run like arrows shot from a bow. They are dramatically so totally ‘in the moment’ that we, the audience, feel like peeping toms. They don’t know we exist. This is the way my generation danced. We focused on creativity, not invention.
The music on the program was mostly classical Scriabin, Schubert, Schumann. These younger artists danced like they were part of the orchestrations, demonstrating mature musicality. Seeing movement in music, rather than just reflecting the beat or mood setting background, brought a deep sense of why dance can be one of the deepest forms of expression. Isadora Duncan invented a technique that represents the inner spirit devoid of sentimentality, political theatricality, ego related presentations. Her movement transcends the ordinary and allows us to feel the pure Art of Dance, just like music enters our souls. A perfect combination of two Art forms.
How wonderful to have a program of choreography that traveled several generations, Isadora Duncan (c.1914), Doris Humphrey - 1928, Claudia Gitelman - 1989, Francesca Todesco 2025, including one of the young dancers - Rosy Gentle, who is one of my favorite performers. I was especially impressed with Francesca’s ability to bring a freshness to the Duncan technique, but more important to transfer that technique to the young dancers at such a high level. As we prepare to celebrate Isadora in 2027, this company will bring her into the future with glowing respect and accept the importance of this style that influenced the direction of today’s dance.
One last thing. I performed on that stage almost 50 years ago when Merce Cunningham opened the space for choreographic experimentation (the space opened in 1971). Over the years, most of the dance we know today was presented in that space or other spaces below 42nd Street like Judson Church and DTW (now NY Live Arts), the DIA (now gone). Now, for the last time, Graham has kept the legacy alive. I was swamped with so many memories, such history. Here Dances We Dance was presenting a Century of American Dance on one program. A VERY special evening.
Jim May – President Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble
Harmonic Dissonance, a performance I had the pleasure of attending on November 23rd 2025, was my first experience at a modern dance recital. As a classical musician with a passing interest in ballet, particularly from the perspective of the musician, I was immediately taken in by the troupe's joyful rendition of repertory dances in the first half, set to classics by Schumann and Bach. The second half offered us more diversity of mood, expertly depicting pain and longing with their choreography. Every aspect of the production is high quality; you can tell thought was given to costumes, lighting design, and music selections. For many people who might be accustomed to going to see a ballet performance from up on the third balcony at the Met opera house, being able to appreciate the precision and grace of Dances We Dance in a more intimate venue is a real treat.
In a city like New York where it seems like there is some kind of performance every night of the week, I highly recommend seeing a Dances We Dance show. They take their art very seriously, and I look forward to being in their audience in the future.
Alice Petri
I came to the Dances We Dance concert Thursday, November twentieth.
I came to see modern dance repertory.
American Modern Dance is rapidly fading away,
Repertory companies are constantly fighting for relevancy amidst the excitement of new choreography, new movement, and new structures.
Arts in general are clawing to stay alive in the current political climate.
But in the fleeting world of dance, the only way to preserve dances is to dance them.
Witnessing historical work feels urgent.
Dancing historical work has even more potency.
In order for dance to be passed down, the ideas have to be discussed. The technique has to be analyzed, the choreography has to be embodied on the staging director to teach the movement, then embodied on the dancer to share the art piece with the audience and themselves. They dig for several versions of the piece, and watch multiple recordings- if they exist. The costume is located in someone’s basement. If you are lucky- it fits. At least five different mentors are consulted for historical relevancy. There are late night intellectual discussions, dreams of restaging pieces decades before they are dusted off again for the stage. It is a group effort. It is the work of museum curators, and the weight of retrospective research. There are arguments about structure, body placements, and secret art practices, so specific as to discussing what a dancer might be envisioning, feeling, and seeing during each movement of the dance. Each gesture has been analyzed and sequenced by a choreographer for a very clear purpose.
This is a process of preservation. And a labor of love.
Each modern dance pedagogy is an actual language spoken by the body, mind, and soul. And without the time and love poured into this process these very niche languages disappear. The performers and directors are not only dancers, artists, and athletes, but historians and librarians. They are working to preserve dance lineage for future audiences to witness and discover.
Francesca Todesco offered a brilliant show titled: “Harmonic Dissonance” with her company Dances We Dance, and a collection of guest dance artists. Each piece felt connected to the prior work and the proceeding. My recollection is nothing compared to witnessing these movers in time and space.
The opening piece was “Air for the G String,” by Doris Humphrey.
It is an often-restaged Humphrey work. Probably because it is a masterclass on Doris. It was an ethereal rendition. On Thursday evening Gail Corbin was the lead. She has been dancing Humphrey’s work her entire career, spanning a lifetime, and effortlessly introduced ideas of connectivity, elegance, and harmony along with four other gifted dancers. There was a manifestation of strength underneath the simplicity of “Air’s” processional quality. But as with most dances that seem simple, they are often not. “Air” showcased qualities of strength because the dancers had sturdy framed arms to support the slower movement and cascading gowns. They each had control of their torso lending to subtle expression within the stoicism of Bach. The five dancers spoke with their bodies about understanding the necessity of womanhood and unity between them- Bold statements in today's atmosphere.
Then several of the dancers stunned and transformed in “Scherzo” by Isadora Duncan (Schubert Symphony No. 9). The language changed by choreographer, but so did the tone. The statuesque dancers from before became coy hummingbirds. They exhibited an entirely new set of specificity. This time emerging from cascading chests, and emotive hands. Their intentionality was very clear, and felt like watching sunshine flickering on the ocean, or tasting a tart apricot. They were incredibly light on their feet, with precise, precarious jumps. The dancers flirted and played and stood atop punctuated attitudes. Faith Kimberling appeared in a solo with delicate, generous movements that offered her heart to anyone in attendance. If “Air” fed me strength, “Scherzo” fed me belief. The dancers were buoyant and alive, and a reminder of the vitality of Duncan’s repertory work.
And then the texture of the show changed again with a piece by Claudia Gitelman set on the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble. In “Schubert Impromptu,” strength and hope were still very much prevalent, but there was an emotional depth that the Sokolow dancers know how to convey. Gitelman’s work lends itself to these truths by way of devastating suspensions and hinged falls spilling onto the floor. The dancers moved seamlessly as an ensemble, supporting each other as a unit. The moments oscillated between fleeting and elongated, from frantic spiraling turns to a sustained arabesque by Krista Jansen. Minimalism was loaded with darker layers. A different picture was painted than the structured brightness from earlier pieces in the program. It was the perfect segue to additional defiant works by Isadora that closed the show.
I was grateful for the contribution of so much beautiful dance.
I could have watched this program every evening it was open; there was so much emotion to gather and process and reflect upon. I look forward to the intricate work Dances We Dance programming brings forth in future seasons to come. I'm grateful for the continued efforts of the dance artists who choose to breathe life into modern dance.
Mary Karl (published in Dance Enthusiast)
LAST DANCE AT WESTBETH FOR GRAHAM STUDIO
J. Taylor Basker
Dancers need space. Space is at a premium in New York City. Westbeth has provided since its inception, a premium place for dancers who need room to run, leap, skip and spin their healing magic. The vicarious experience of a dance audience is unique for both mind and body. Watching dancing excites the cortex and activates “mirror neurons” that lead to better coordination and the audience feeling that they have moved along with the dancers. It releases endorphins and dopamine that improves our moods and reduces stress through lowering cortisol. You get smarter from watching dance since it enhances cognitive functions through strengthening brain connections related to memory and spatial recognition. If you can’t dance, just watching is valuable for your health!
But sadly, Westbeth is losing the 11th floor dance studio initiated by Merce Cunningham in 1971, shortly after Westbeth’s founding. It was then transferred to the Martha Graham Studio in 2012. The reasons for Graham leaving are complex including damaged infrastructure and unreliable elevators that made getting to a performance, rehearsal or class often difficult.
The final dance performance in this unique space was an appropriate tribute to the history of Modern Dance by the important company Dances We Dance, whose Director, Francesca Todesco, draws much of her choreography from the founders of Modern Dance. Her company is “dedicated to teaching, researching, reconstructing, preserving and performing both historical and contemporary choreography.” The concluding performances in this historic space evoked the spirits of Doris Humphrey and Isadora Duncan whose techniques were incorporated into the contemporary choreography of Todesco and the Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble. Direct links to Humphrey and Duncan as dancer Gail Corbin and choreographer Claudia Gitelman completed the link in dances employing Humphrey’s and Duncan’s choreography.
The program was divided into two parts. Part 1 “Repertory Works” were performances of the original choreography of Humphrey and Duncan. Part 2, “Harmonic Dissonance,” added the choreography of Todesco, Rosie Gentle and a tribute to Anna Sokolow. The performances were riveting and exhilarating. I watched them twice, with different performers who added their individual elan. These were performances that were enhanced with repeat viewings. I would gladly watch them again and again. My fatigued body and sagging spirit were greatly strengthened afterwards!
The performance began with a startling scene, made more effective since the audience in the Westbeth space is on the same level as the performers, with no separation between the viewer and the dancers. This large open space for movement includes chairs for the audience, who thus become part of the event. Into this darkened space surrounding us, a light gradually grew on the stage, revealing a Rodin-esque sculptural group of figures, black and still, in the quixotic shadows right in front of our chairs! Then the figures began to move; light exploded revealing the contrast of many dancers in rose-colored gowns, reminiscent of Grecian -type chitons, weaving through their long gold scarfs, evoking ancient Greek himations. These were close copies of the costumes Doris Humphrey used, and these dark figures seemed to have emerged from the past revealing the splendors of Humphrey’s classic piece that she choreographed to Bach’s “Air for the G String.” Her lyrical, ethereal choreography was achieved by using the body’s ability to travel between the polarities of balance and imbalance. Bodies gracefully fell to the floor and recovered. Backs became liquid, Arms and legs forcefully reached through space, hands and feet embraced the earth and clouds, even necks became limbs stretching in rhythmic arcs. Partners were poles of energies; groups were gleeful spirits celebrating the power of the body to defy gravity and any constrictions. Freedom was celebrated. The solo of Gail Corbin was strong and sure, affirming her close connection to Doris Humphrey, whose Foundation she directs. Together with Charles Weidman she reconstructed this piece for the José Limón Dance Company , all pioneers of Modern Dance. This piece expressed Humphrey’s use of fluid movement, musicality and rhythmic structure as the core principles of her choreography. The result was an exciting and expressive kaleidoscope of bodies, scarfs and space. She built riveting moving structures, constructing figures in space and is named the “Architect of Dance.”
The second piece was choreographed by Isadora Duncan to Schubert’s Symphony #9 “The Great.” This work is famous for its break from symphonic norms giving woodwinds and brass prominence, and for its energetic and expansive quality. These characteristics harmonized with the work of Duncan, who also rejected classical forms, and emphasized a free flowing and improvisational structure, what she termed the “law of wave movement” in nature. Her choreography to Schubert’s music parallel both the gentle, nostalgic lines of Schubert’s wistful, romantic mood that then erupts into the fierce energy of triumph and elation with dancers marching, kicking and leaping. The piece soon softens into a ritual, with quiet solemn procession and imagined offerings. A male soloist leaps into this sacred space, in a bright red toga, depicting a priest or tyrant, a strong male authority figure, directing and dominating the females. The first performer, Ian Bell was more tyrant, while the next night Oscar Rodriguez, with his Mediterranean classical features, was more priest, despite his bulging muscles and bandaged ankle. The unique interpretations each gave to this challenging role is a reminder that viewing dances with different performers is quite worthwhile. In the concluding Scherzo, Duncan’s structured approach incorporating patterns of movement as opposition, succession and unison were playfully executed. The world becomes a cheerful place in which to frolic, Schubert’s melancholy is dispelled and enchanting joyful gestures orbit and captivate and the viewer.
Part Two entitled:” Harmonic Dissonance” was a series based on Duncan’s Scriabin Études. Introduced by Francesca Todesco using Isadora Duncan’s choreography, she employed the sharp distinctive gestures of Duncan’s technique. These strong, angular movements matched the pointed intent of Isadora Duncan , who was sympathetic to the Russian Revolution, the suffering of the oppressed and the tragic losses to violence, war, famine, imprisonment and torture. Todesco describes the mood of these dances – with frequent falls and expressive hands grasping tragedy. In the Schubert “Impromptu” danced by the Sokolow Ensemble, some of the movement is so smooth it is as though the dancers’ feet were on rollers, yet this velocity dramatically collapses onto the floor. Then the movements become both gentle and acrobatic. There are spins, leaps into partner’s arms, and tangible tenderness using the drama of wide black skirts as a unifying element of form between figures, one of whom is a male also in a voluminous skirt. The Impromptu’s uncertain tonalities end in a sustained tension of a cascade of figures tightly grouped, again reminiscent of a Rodin sculpture unified by the verticality of the dark skirts. Rodin was one of Duncan’s artist friends.
Returning to Scriabin, the dances become apocalyptic. There is panic watching the sky, bodies, no escape, only death. Todesco evokes the paralysis of war and grief in her choreography. Returning to Isadora Duncan choreography and Scriabin, the tragic mood transforms into defiance. Dancing in darkness, red light, with clenched fists, imprisoned, with movement in convergent paths of death and farewell. I thought of the soloist, Coleen Edwards, as a Charlotte Corday, who murdered Marat during Revolutionary times. The duo of Ballard and Todesco was angular, as two vectors that have magnitude and direction radiating from the solar plexus as Duncan directed. Geometrically directed, the movements are strong but free of cliché or artifice. Rosy Gentle’s solo choreographed by Todesco , brings the emotive strength of Duncan to a scene of angst and anger. Duncan knew personal grief; she lost her three young children. The world seems to collapse. Violence and hate prevail. Do we accept it or do we scream, as the dancer’s contorted face implies as she concludes this dystopian vision, that is so contemporary and painfully familiar to us today.
These performances are not just brilliant dance and a lesson in Modern Dance history but vibrant visions of the extremes the human spirit endures, from ecstasy to extermination. Westbeth will miss being crowned with such dance on our top floor.
11/25/25 (Article to be published in the Village View with photos)
Dr. Jacqueline Casale Taylor Basker
Former Chair, Dept. Digital Art & Design, New York Institute of Technology, Amman, Jordan, Professor, NYIT, NYC & Old Westbury, NY
German-Jordan University, Amman, Jordan (Islamic Architecture, Heritage & Conservation)
Performance Date:
November 20 - 23, 2025
“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you,” these were the words of American Modern pioneering artist Isadora Duncan in the 1920’s during a performance in Boston. During this era, her revolutionary movement stood firm against the constraints of ballet and social norms in order to proclaim liberated forms of the body in movement and in life.
Harmonic Dissonance was the fall seasonal production during November 2025 by the company Dances We Dance by Francesca Todesco in the Martha Graham Studio Theater at 55 Bethune Street, a studio that had its final performances where legacy once stood as a beacon for different generations of modern dance. A production carried by a fortitude of women, gathered one last time to honor the essence and the legacy that once rebelled against the political and the social norms of dance. The production was set up in two acts with mostly highlighting the revolutionary free and kindred work of Isadora Duncan. Other choreographers included Doris Humphrey, Claudia Gitelman, and Rosie Gentle. However, it was the work of Francesca Todesco that weaved through the work of these pioneers bringing different generations of artists together.
The first act opened with repertory works of Doris Humphrey and Isadora Duncan. Air for the G String by Doris Humphrey was performed eloquently by both, Director of the Humphrey/Weidman Foundation Gail Corbin and Lauren Naslund associate artistic director of the Sokolow Theater Dance Ensemble. This work set the tone for the night with the promise of support to lead younger generations across time. Followed was Duncan’s larger work SCHUBERT SYMPHONY #9 ‘The Great,’ with two separate movements: Andante Con Moto’ and Scherzo. If dance artists are unfamiliar with the Duncan work, it is in this large scale piece where one can learn the true meaning and the edifications to uplift the essence of individuality away from the norms of classical ballet. One dancer in particular, Faith Kimberling, was a leading figure through the ritualistic repetitive pathways for the younger ensemble movers. The whole ensemble expressed the liberated gestures of the bare wrists, feet, and solar plexus that Isadora Duncan dared to challenge during her time. The first act concluded with a vibrant decrescendo with a promise of preservation for the impulses that lead our solar plexus in the natural world.
The second act, mostly interpreted through Schubert’s serene music, stood as a lasting revelation of how far these legacies have endured through the industry. It is in this act where the work of Francesca becomes a reflection and a reaction of what it means to be a mentor and a mentee. Additionally, the work of Claudia Gitelman performed by the Sokolow Theater Dance Ensemble, examines that trajectory where legacy can be at times forgotten but cherished through the relics from those that paved the way. Three mature master solo works depicting different times of the life of Isadora Duncan were isolated through the night; But it is the genuine and bold delivery of Francesca Todesco, Rae Ballard, and Catherine Gallant that these modern and postmodern legacies are in great hands. Furtherly, Francesca’s final work establishes an idea as a tribute to her modern pioneers that our growth never truly reaches a point of completion and it continuously polishes through innovation or adversity.
Witnessing these legacies and their trajectories through this current political social climate, it is important to continue questioning methods to liberate the diversity of artists from codified traditions.
Author:
Edu Tair Hernández (The Dance Enthusiast audience review)
