WHAT do the great archetypal Borscht Belt comedian Henny Youngman and the founder of Theosophy, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, have in common with modern dance? Both would turn in their graves if they knew – and as for Mme. Blavatsky, she would possibly also levitate!
On Tuesday night at the Joyce Theater, Shapiro & Smith Dance gave the premiere of “Shtick,” a solo danced by Danial Shapiro and choreographed by himself and his wife, Joanie Smith, and the New York premiere of their theater piece “Notes From a Seance” for the full company.
Shapiro’s solo, at present a brief opener but apparently intended as the basis for a full-evening work, suggests the fears and travails of a young stand-up comic in a Catskills baptism of fire.
It is danced to a sound-score by Scott Killian that uses, they claim, 100 Henny Youngman jokes, but it sounded more like 20 to me. They were not Henny’s best. Shapiro is a vigorous dancer and quite a compelling stage presence, but take his choreography, please.
It is full of wild gestures and wilder falls, twisty jumps and power turns, but he and Smith seem to believe in making a few steps go a long way. Repetition outweighs variety and brings inevitable monotony.
The same frugality of dance invention was also evident in “Notes From a Seance,” but this had a certain strange charm and atmosphere to it, and the company – eight dancers including Smith and Shapiro themselves – is athletically strong and vigorous.
The piece has a text by Paul Selig, telling of a young Victorian lady who finds herself involved in a kind of spiritualist sex cult.
The staging is also very good, as is the choice of music, Chopin and others, played with spirit by pianist Tadeusz Majewski. But the choreography, danced with derring-do and energetic fearlessness, and at its best when suggesting waltzes and the like, never really supported the theme expressively. It is choreography churned out by the yard, not bad in texture, but after a time its lack of variegation wears out its welcome.
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Joyce Theater, Eighth Avenue and 19th Street; (212) 242-0800. Through Sunday.
