Son of Gone Fishin’ photo by Stephanie Berger

Now that Trisha Brown is no longer making new work, every opportunity to see her past pieces is to be cherished. For the company’s engagement at New York Live Arts, they have reconstructed Son of Gone Fishin’ (1981) with new costumes by the original costume designer, Judith Shea. This work is so complex that it’s hard to glean any sort of structure on first viewing. My advice is to just follow the dancing—and the hypnotic music by the late Robert Ashley.

The program also includes one of Trisha’s most beautiful and haunting works: Opal Loop/Cloud Installation #72503 (1980). The cloud of vapor (it’s not dry ice but a water sculpture by artist Fugiko Nakaya), underscores the dissolution of all things; you never know what part of the dance you will see. The costumes are the best because each of the four dancers looks like they are from a different movie.

The company is also bringing back Solo Olos, which I danced as part of Line Up in the 70s. We learned it forward, backward, and with “Spill” —a nicely messy little detour. We were able to reverse the phrase on a dime, or rather on the impromptu instructions of the “caller.” It keeps your brain on its toes, as it were.

April 8–13, 2014, with various workshops offered. Click here for tickets.

Barrington Hinds and Joshua Tuason, photo by Sarah Silver

Tearing through space—backward and in a circle—is how Petronio’s new Locomotor begins. Made up of moves from his 30 years of repertoire, the dance challenges his 10 fierce dancers with devouring space without crashing into each other. Embedded in this elastic group work are some gorgeously tangled duets. Music is by the dee-jay Clams Casino (aka Michael Volpe), who happens to be Petronio’s second cousin. We’ll also be treated to Stripped, a new solo for Stephen himself set to a piano étude by Philip Glass, in a slower tempo and more minor key. A revival of Part I of Strange Attractors (1999) completes the program, which is April 8–13 at the Joyce. To see Stephen talking about this 30th-anniversary concert, go to www.dancemagazine.com and find the just-posted “Choreography in Focus.” For tickets click here.

Stephen Petronio

It takes courage to dance slowly and Beth Gill’s New Work for the Desert is slow from start to finish. Slow enough to feel the light change, quiet enough to not see entrances from another direction, sad enough to remind you of death. In an interview with Gia Kourlas, Gill is up front about being influenced by Trisha Brown, particularly her 1987 Newark—though I also saw glimmers of Trisha’s Locus (1975) and Set and Reset (1983). Gill has incorporated specific partnering moves from the genius last section of Newark, in which a very conscious sort of gravitational pull happens between people, e.g. hooking a foot around the back of another’s neck, clasping hands around the neck and rocking that person. The partner has to be passive enough to make these neat maneuvers possible, and Gill extends that passivity to its ultimate endpoint. What happens next is morbidly, bizarrely, beautifully tender. Thomas Dunn’s lighting creates the illusion of sky, earth, and distance. Till March 22. New York Live Arts. Click here for more info.

All photos by Cherylynn Tsushima

Nacho Duato and the Graham company are an inspired pairing. Although Duato told me in this interview that he enjoyed working with the Mikhailovsky Ballet dancers, I imagine he missed the earthy quality that is so central to his choreography. And lord knows the Graham company needs new choreography. Rust, the piece he made on the group’s men last year, sears your soul with its images of torture. (Sorry, but we won’t be seeing it at City Center this season.) His world premiere, as shown in progress at Guggenheim Works & Process a couple weeks ago, is also intense. Titled Depak Ine, it has insect motifs like scrunching, belly-to-the-ground twitches. A gripping solo for the astounding  PeiJu Chien-Pott, a new dancer from Taiwan, is worth the ticket price alone. The season also includes Clytemnestra (with the glorious Katherine Crockett), Appalachian Spring, and a world premiere by Andonis Foniadakis. March 19–22 at NY City Center. Click here for tickets.

Katherine Crockett in Clytemnestra, photo by Hibbard Nash