This week, David Parsons’ company Parsons Dance is performing in the Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow. In the late 1970s, Parsons catapulted onto the New York modern dance scene as a dancer when he joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company. He then just skyrocketed to fame as a choreographer when he formed Parsons Dance with lighting designer Howell Binkley.
And, of course, that made sense. In the first place, Parsons was a profoundly gifted dancer, so it was natural that he would be able to generate beautiful movement in his body and then extract it and put it on a stage. In the second place, as a member of the Taylor Company for nine years, he presumably learned from the ground up how to create and construct a dance—and, critically, how to take the vision you have in your head and put it on dancers—from one of the all-time masters of modern dance choreography, Paul Taylor.
The program Parsons has brought to the Pillow represents work he has made over the past 40-plus years, including perhaps Parsons’ most famous piece, “Caught.” Works by choreographers Robert Battle and Jamar Roberts are also on the program.
Parsons makes extremely engaging, exuberant, and athletic dances, with an emphasis on the athletic. His ensemble pieces effortlessly hold your attention, both because of the inventive and musical movement he conjures up, and because of the intricate spacing, patterning, and relationships he develops between the dancers. His work requires dancers who are not only exceedingly strong technically, with great musicality and abundant spatial awareness, but also dancers who are utterly fearless and will throw themselves into whatever technically demanding movement Parsons cooks up for them with total commitment and abandon. And the current company of nine dancers fits the bill perfectly. They dance Parsons’ ensemble pieces, “Swing Shift,” “Nascimento,” and “Shining Star,” as well as the duet from “Finding Center,” full out and flawlessly. These are superb dancers one wants to watch no matter what they do—I could watch them make a grilled-cheese sandwich! It is a bonus I get to watch them dance Parsons’ choreography.
Battle’s piece “Takademe” is an unusual virtuosic solo, coming out of an interesting concept. In the piece, a dancer essentially becomes a controlled marionette-like figure, forced to isolate various body parts—sometimes almost microscopically, and at incredible speed and rapid succession—seemingly at the command of Sheila Chandra’s voice in her song “Speaking in Tongues II.” On Wednesday evening, the dancer was Téa Pérez, who danced it with a wonderful kind of whimsy. The piece requires total synergy between the dancer and the music, and, because the music in this case is recorded, all that synergy has to come from the dancer. Ms. Pérez delivered beautifully.
Roberts’ piece “Juke” did not deliver quite as well. To the music of Miles Davis, the dancers posture and display attitude and even some aggression towards and between each other, but to what end never quite becomes clear. There is some striking, interesting movement throughout the piece, especially toward the ending, and, as always, these dancers bring 110 percent commitment to the piece and are wonderful to watch.
Parsons’ signature work “Caught” is a stunning piece always entirely worth seeing. It is best if it comes as a surprise, so I will not describe it here. I have confidence that it will always be on Parsons’ programs, so there will be many more opportunities to see it if you can’t get to the Pillow this week. But maybe try…
I first saw “Caught” soon after Parsons created it in 1982. And I saw it a number of times thereafter with Parsons performing. Since he retired from dancing, I have also seen it a number of times with other members of his company performing. Last Wednesday, Zoey Anderson, who is an alumni of The School at Jacob’s Pillow, danced it beautifully and with total conviction—perhaps the best I have personally seen since Parsons stopped performing it. However, it is a tribute to Parsons’ pure power, his athleticism, and his elegance as a dancer that no one I have seen perform it since matches my memory of Parsons performing it. When performed by Parsons, the piece, astonishing always, was simply beyond breathtaking.
Parsons Dance will be at the Pillow through Sunday, August 11.
