CriticalDance Forum

Troupe's distinctive style inspires hope
By Whitney Smith for The Indianapolis Star

One of the most distinctive dance companies to crop up in America after World War II will soon give its first Indianapolis concert in recent memory.

The Limon Dance Company, which continues to survive 30 years after its founder's death, plans to perform one of its signature pieces, as well as newer fare.

Company artistic director Carla Maxwell has been invited to teach a master class for Butler University students and invited guests at 2 p.m. Monday in Butler's Lilly Hall.

Both events are part of an 11-week Limon Company tour leading up to its New York "home series" this spring.

At Pike Performing Arts Center, the company will offer "The Moor's Pavane," Limon's 1949 masterpiece based on "Othello," the Shakespearean tragedy about a trusted lieutenant who secretly loathes his Moorish superior, then tells a dangerous lie. Newsday critic Linda Winer called the piece "a tightly coiled dance of death and betrayal." Music is by Elizabethan English composer Henry Purcell.

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Dance company puts on outstanding show
By Whitney Smith for The IndyStar

One of the nation's oldest, most important modern dance companies continues to maintain its beloved works of the past, while creating vital new pieces bearing its imprint.

Fifty-six years after its birth in New York, the Jose Limon Dance Company remains vibrant, despite the fact that its charismatic Mexican-American founder passed away in 1972 -- and despite even a sagging economy that has deprived many arts groups of desperately needed income.

Tuesday night at the Pike Performing Arts Center, 13 members of the Limon company performed an exhilarating program that spanned practically the whole history of the troupe. It ranged from Limon's famous "The Moor's Pavane" from 1949 -- and his mentor, Doris Humphrey's "Invention" of similar vintage -- on through year-old works by Limon company artistic director Carla Maxwell and former Limon dancer Adam Hougland.

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Jose Limon's Moving Pictures
At Kennedy Center, 'Moor's Pavane' Proves to Be a Modern Classic. By Sarah Kaufman for The Washington Post.

From the 1940s through the '50s, American choreographers produced a raft of enduring masterpieces: There was Balanchine's "The Four Temperaments," Jerome Robbins's "Fancy Free," Martha Graham's "Appalachian Spring," to name just a few. To their number, add Jose Limon's "The Moor's Pavane" and Doris Humphrey's "Invention," both given illuminating performances by the Limon Dance Company Thursday at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

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From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

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A interview with Artistic Director Carla Maxwell:

A review in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

<a href=http://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainment/stage/sfl-enlimonapr22,0,5203042.story?coll=sfla%2Dentertainment%2Dstage target=_blank>More</a>

I love that quote by Jose! To which I would add another, often attributed to modern dance mentor/teacher Louis Horst "choreography is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration"! :p

Wow. What a beginning sentence:

<a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/arts/dance/27DUNN.html target=_blank>More</a>

Yes, Azlan, "rolling thunder", an excellent auditory metaphor, shall we say. I often wonder what the "sound" of modern/contemporary dance would be today. Certainly not rolling thunder. Hmmmmm! :p

<small>[ 27 April 2003, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: trina ]</small>

A short blurb, halfway down about the company's season at the Joyce:

<a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/arts/29ARTS.html target=_blank>LIMÓN AT THE JOYCE</a>
LAWRENCE VAN GELDER, NY TIMES

Yes, Missa Brevis is considered one of Limon's greatest works, though not often re-staged, because it requires a large cast: the regular company with additional dancers, approximately 20 in all. I believe it was choreographed following the Limon company tour to Europe in 1957. Jose was shocked at the remaining devastation from World War II, the still bombed out cities, especially in Poland and Eastern Europe in general. The piece is choreographed to Zoltan Kodaly's Missa Brevis in Tempore Belli. It presents a group, perhaps a large family, or village, grieving, but overcoming the devastation which surround them. An interesting footnote: dance critic Deborah Jowitt was in the original cast.

Interesting that Deborah Jowitt, whose article is quoted above, mentions the "soaring architecture" of Limon's work. Interesting because Doris Humphrey, Limon's mentor, created work which also was described as architectural. Most specifically, I'm thinking of "Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor". This work is very much in the vein of music visualization, without any specific story. The very majestic, grandiose music is by JS Bach.