Riedel Dance Theater review

A Journey of Redemption 

You have to respect a choreographer who takes on C. S. Lewis and Dante in one evening. A longtime veteran of the Limon Company, Jonathan Riedel brought his young company to Joyce Soho to present new works inspired by the two authors.

Opening the evening with Inferno, a collection of brief works inspired by sections of Dante’s poem, Riedel sets out to show us the resulting agony of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins.’ The seven solos and duets are accompanied by Chopin piano Nocturnes whose melancholy beauty provides an unsettling underscoring to the raving choreography. Rather than directly choreograph Dante’s visions of the punishments of the damned, Riedel endeavors to show us how the sins themselves continue to torture after death. Charles Scott gives a tormentingly beautiful performance in the second section, Circle of the Solar Plexus, as he works to tear off his own skin. Writhing on the ground he claws at his chest, trying in vain to open its cavity. The choreography is tense and angular, reminiscent of traditional illustrations of these scenes.

It would be more accurate to say that Out of the Silent Planet is loosely based on a theme in Lewis’s Space Trilogy rather than the first book of the series itself. If you are expecting to see the adventures of Elwin Ransom played out in a story ballet you will be sorely disappointed. Instead the piece focuses on the relational aspects of the series depicting the shattered social interactions of Earth contrasted with the uncorrupted grace of the Martian and Venusian cultures. Earth is a manipulative partnered dance, perhaps symbolizing Lewis’s view that the fallen nature of Man on Earth is that of manipulation and control. Mars features some impressive lifts and weight sharing performed by Ryan Mason and James Brenneman III as if in contrast the competitive nature of Earth.

Although the allusion to the novel provides the structure of the piece, the work would have been stronger without it. A viewer seeking to contextualize the dance in terms of the book will be misled as the piece only tangentially touches the book’s themes. Viewers unfamiliar with Lewis’s books might better appreciate the piece, as I found myself straining to find the connection between the movement and Lewis’s plots and arguments.

Riedel’s second Lewis inspired work, The Four Loves, takes a more direct approach to literary interpretation. Riedel creates four dances each based on one of Lewis’s types of love; Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity. Affection is a cliché glance at the first type of love embodied by couples playing a leaping, flirtatious game of hide and seek. Riedel’s duet with Kathryn Alter in Friendship better covers the subject with the partners executing some very evocative lifts. Little is left to the imagination in Eros as Lisa Iannacito pretends to lick her sleeping partner’s arms and head; evidently he reciprocates her feelings as the piece culminates in a kiss.

Although Riedel’s choice of subject matter is certainly a credit to him, his enigmatic interpretations are unsatisfying. While the dances themselves are well made, the substance and depth implied by the books is not met. These authors set a high bar which Riedel’s dances only occasionally meet. Still it is a lofty goal that he has set himself and even sporadic success is meritorious.