Dancers dancing

A few months back I posted about a dance show I went to at BAM in Brookyn. I mostly ruminated on how much I enjoy dance and yet never attend shows. Also, that it's one of those things, like fishing or fine whiskies, that I'm not really qualified to write about (in much the way, that I am now qualified to write about the following things: apple butter canning; slow, methodical tin whistle playing; photographing cats, specifically my own). However, I attended yet another dance performance last night, bringing the total, and likely final, count for dance performances attended in 2012 to two. A group of friends wanted to go to to an Alvin Ailey show, which is something that I'd always wanted to check out. Mostly because the woman in all the subway advertising looks superhumanly strong/attractive.

She was in the show we saw, which was pretty exciting. I wonder how she feels to be featured to prominently in posters all over the city.

Still, while curious, I didn't have any real expectations for the show. And suffice is to say, it was pretty incredible. The movements these people are capable of makes me wonder how we are the same species. The incredible strength it takes to perform the movements coupled with the grace it takes to hide that strength and make each movement appear effortless is just incredible. Here is an ad for one of the three pieces we saw. However, my favorite was actually one not choreographed by Alvin Ailey at all, but rather by an Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin. I couldn't find a video of it done at Alvin Ailey in the past, but I did find a version from a theater in the Netherlands. Seeing that excerpt made me realize that the part where they brought audience members up on stage and made them dance with the performers was actually part of the same piece. I was not chosen, which is not surprising considering it was a rather large audience of people and also that I aggressively avoided eye contact when the dancers came into the audience.

So don't worry, this won't become a dance review blog now, as I don't intend to devote my life to it just yet (although it did kind of make me want to take the free dance class offered there with your ticket stub...at least until my friend mentioned the teachers are kind of bitchy/exacting). It is however always nice to take advantage of some of the many things that New York has to offer outside of the same old things I always take advantage of (mostly food). Now to see what dance performances are available in Astoria...