NEW YORK — Rocketing up through 2 1/2 octaves, the glissando
that starts Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” is a siren cry, an announcement of
joy and chutzpah that has also come to mean “I love New York City.”, when
pianist Conrad Tao played it in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, dancer
Caleb Teicher ran in and gave Nathan Bugh, a fellow dancer, a big fat hug.
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This was funny and sweet — perfect, really, as an expression of
the moment’s emotion. For there we were, a live audience, masked and carefully
spaced on the rotunda’s spiral walkway, experiencing live performance indoors.
Spring is here! The pandemic is over! Everybody embrace!
That’s what it felt like for a moment, at least. The pandemic
isn’t over, of course. And while this performance of Caleb Teicher & Corporation
inaugurated the in-person return of the Works & Process series — with more
performances scheduled through June by companies that have rehearsed in bubble
residencies upstate — all such arrangements are tentative. NY Pops Up
performances of Teicher’s company, scheduled for the same day, were canceled
because of new protocols. And indoor performances scheduled this week at the
Park Avenue Armory have been postponed because some cast members tested
positive for COVID-19.
Teicher and the gang acknowledged this precarity, too. The
second time that Tao’s fingers rippled up to the high note, another pair of
dancers stopped short of contact and settled for an elbow bump. Again, this was
funny, but in retrospect, the big hug and the elbow bump seemed to sum up an
event that was both wonderful and less than ideal.
It began the way the last pre-pandemic Works & Process
event, a Teicher show, ended back in February 2020: with Bugh doing the Lindy
Hop by himself to music in his head. Despite the resonance, this was an awkward
opening. And the selection that followed, a piano interlude — Brahms’
Intermezzo in E minor — felt a bit random, though Tao suspended time in
freezing cascades of sound.
“Rhapsody in Blue” was the main event, and Tao’s rendition (of
his own arrangement for solo piano) was monumental, as big as the building. It
was too big for Teicher and the dancers to match, but their let’s-put-on-a-show
attitude gave the effort the innocent charm of a “Peanuts” cartoon.
The rhythmic irregularity of “Rhapsody” poses a choreographic
challenge. Teicher met it ably with solos, duets and group encounters, all with
a story-like suggestion of collisions and rendezvous in the city. Drawing from
Lindy vocabulary, the dance was pleasingly arranged in circles and other shapes
fit for the rotunda and meant to be seen from above. Sometimes, large, slow
Charleston steps were set excitingly against the music’s drive, and several
duets, blithely disregarding traditional gender roles, caught the music’s
tenderness and romance.
It was also charming when, near the end, Tao geared up again for
another of the score’s famous ascents and the dancers hesitated, as if to admit
the futility of keeping up with the pianist. But on the next high note, they
smashed together in a group hug before running off with arms extended, like
planes in an ad for United Airlines. Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” has been used in
many ways over the years.It made the air around us less frightening and more
friendly.
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