The Village Voice
March 17-23, 2004 - Footnotes
by Deborah Jowitt

"Sitting Down to Dance"

Ever since government funding for individual choreographers dried up, shared programs have been on the rise. They’re useful samplers for spectators. Anyone attending all three “Performance Mix” programs presented by the New Dance Alliance at Joyce SoHo the weekend before last would have seen dances by 13 choreographers. One evening’s mix ranged from works in progress to Ellis Wood’s Timeless Red from the late 90’s.

On two close together chairs, in an excerpt from Shannon Hummel’s promising work in progress Stay, sat prim, hands-folded Vanessa Adato and Donna Costello. Costello practiced enough curious, obsessive gestures to interest and irritate her seat mate. Her escalating bids for attention led to a struggle; the smaller Adato repeatedly pinned her to the wall with an elbow. Hummel’s initial image, coupled with the birdsong in MANOISECA’s score, suggested strangers in a park, but then Adato could’ve walked away or called the cops. There’s some deeper, as yet unclarified rivalry here.