Music and Dance at the Construction Company

10 East 18th Street, NYC, NY 10003
212-924-7882

Review by Robert Abrams
November 9, 2002

The Christopher Caines Dance Company/Janacek performed SNOW with Christopher Woodrell, Sabra Perry, Sally Schuiling, and Christopher Caines. This ballet often exhibited bilateral symmetry. The dancers appeared to be comforting a distraught friend. The dancers faces were consistently expressionless. There were some interesting pattern flows. The piece made extensive use of symbolic pantomime hand gestures. Unfortunately, the squeaky floor was a slight distraction. The dance ended without warning. Overall it was an enjoyable work, even if it wasn't quite to my tastes.

WAKE, by Rachel Cohen with music by Berlioz, was a modern dance interpretation of someone waking up. If waking up was as mirth provoking as she made it look, people would probably wake up more often.

The highlight of the evening was BHARATANATYAM-BACH VARIATIONS with Rajika Puri and Shobana Ram. They were both in tune with the music. The occasional small smile showed that they were having fun dancing this work, which was danced with strength and poise. They made the squeaky floor work to their advantage because the work involved deliberate use of stomping. In non-stomping sections, they danced in a way which minimized the squeaking of the floor. Ms. Puri has superb presence and her partner was very expressive too. There was no narrative and mostly neutral faces, but just enough emotion in their faces often enough to give the audience an entry into their humanity throughout the whole work. They made it look like Classical Indian dance was meant to be danced to Bach.

Rajika Puri
Photo courtesy of Rajika Puri