Irrationality rules . . . sometimes

    Lar Lubovitch Dancers

(Source: Steven Schreiber, edgeBoston.com)

Ransom conducted for the Lar Lubovitch dance company last weekend. It reminded me of the first time I heard him do that, back in 1986. It was, oddly, at Carnegie Hall, not your usual dance venue. The dancers were on stage; Ransom and his orchestra, Solisti New York, were on the orchestra level, house right.

I re-read the New York Times review of that performance -- displayed below -- and enjoyed being taken back to that magical night. In case you don’t know, Lubovitch’s Concerto 622 is my all-time favorite dance piece; it’s set the to the Mozart Clarinet Concerto (K.622) and the slow movement is a pas de deux for two men; it makes me weep. The piece inevitably brings the audience to its feet, as it did at that Carnegie premiere.

Reading that review I realized I had the date wrong for my move to New York. I’ve said for years it was 8 April 1986, but since the Lubovitch was the day BEFORE, obviously I had it wrong.

I haven’t been able to find a more accurate date in my journals, but I did come across this startling entry dated a month earlier: “In fact -- unbelievable as this sounds after seven days -- we have decided that I will come to New York to live with him.”

Can you believe that? Ransom and I decided – after SEVEN DAYS – that we would live together. We had been in phone contact for several weeks but seven days after our first visit together in almost two years we made the decision. (The whole story of our beginning is told here.)

It’s too crazy to believe, but that’s the way it was. Sometimes in life you just have to go with your gut, do something irrational because it feels right. That’s the way it was for me in 1986. For Ransom too.

The cynic in me would tell young lovers that most relationships fail; they should not to do anything crazy or rash; take it slow, there’s no point in making it harder by upending your entire life and moving 350 miles.

This is one time I’m sure glad I didn’t take my own advice.

Photos of Concerto 622, courtesy Lar Lubovitch Dance Company

April 9, 1986

DANCE: LUBOVITCH TROUPE

By ANNA KISSELGOFF

THERE is something to cheer about when an already good choreographer comes gloriously into his own - and that is exactly what Monday night's audience stood up to do in Carnegie Hall at the local premiere of Lar Lubovitch's ''Concerto Six Twenty-Two.'' As thousands cheered, the dancers in the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company received huge white lilies at the curtain calls.

The new work, almost a sequel to Mr. Lubovitch's grandly passionate ''Brahms Symphony'' of last year, is named after Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622. It is festive music and it was played with liveliness and wit by the Solisti New York Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ransom Wilson.

This ensemble, which featured Todd Levy as the clarinet soloist, was seated below the stage to the audience's left on the orchestra level. Like invited guests at an 18th-century patron's musicale, they were part of the party.

For Mr. Lubovitch's view of Mozart here is very much on the frolicsome level - until he surprises us and turns the middle adagio section into a tender duet for two men. Is the entire dance piece then a statement about the love two men can have for each other? It is possibly more about the way Mr. Lubovitch hears the music. And what he hears are musical themes that consistently suggest a cornucopia of movement themes.

Something wonderful has happened to Mr. Lubovitch's choreography. The minute his extra-special dancers swept out in the surge of movement that makes up ''A Brahms Symphony'' it was obvious that the company was on a performance high (''Big Shoulders'' was also on the program).

''Concert Six Twenty-Two'' was commissioned by France's National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers with funds from the French Government. The world premiere took place at the center, whose director, Michel Reilhac, was in the audience at Monday's gala, a one-night affair to benefit the Lubovitch company.

The money has been well spent. Like Paul Taylor, Mr. Lubovitch is interested in having dancers dance. The sheer power and urgency of movement is his current concern. And amazingly, his inventiveness never falters. Repeatedly, the new choreography produces new steps, new movement, new patterns, new twists on highly sophisticated formal structures - and all with a vibrantly alive human passion that emanates from the dancers at every moment. Why beat around the bush? The truth is that this is very exciting dancing and this is what dance is really about.

''Concerto'' introduces an ensemble in its first ''Allegro'' movement. The men, Douglas Varone, Rick Michalek, Leonard Meek and Joel Luecht, are dressed in white polo shirts and white pants with a thin colored stripe. The bare-legged women, Ronni Favors, Christine Wright, Kathy Casey and Lorn MacDougal, are in simple white dresses. Craig Miller's lighting, however, makes the white appear brighter and shinier than it is.

Into this sunlit clime, the dancers circle or regroup with endless fluidity into chains, diagonals or various units of four, all the while leaping and twisting into vigorous shapes that curve through space. Power from the thighs and strength from the back radiate from every dancer - this forcefulness is a leitmotif to the increasingly playful tone of the section.

At one point, in fact, Mr. Lubovitch takes Mozart's repeats less than seriously. After some of the dancers vigorously jog through a phrase, they tiptoe to the musical repeat. There are other movement jokes that flash by.

As suddenly as the ensemble sweeps off stage, Sylvain LaFortune and Edward Hillyer, a guest from Montreal's Grands Ballets Canadiens, walk quietly toward each other to begin the male duet of the ''Adagio'' movement. There is a beautiful moment when they meet, place an arm around each other's shoulder and then form a linked pattern of two curved arms between them - as spiritual as the Gothic vault it suggests. The duet is essentialy about one man supporting the other in partnering, mainly in tilted and inventive shapes. Chastely danced, it is also about caring.

The last section, ''Rondo (Allegro)'' features the brilliant Peggy Baker with Mia Babalis and John Dayger in an initial trio, folowed by Miss Casey, Miss Favors and Mr. Meek.

The latter three each have a solo, eccentric in shape, all wonderfully danced. The first trio attempts to stalk around in a neanderthal manner but there is no hiding the technique behind the pose. When Mr. Lubovitch brings back the rest of the company for a unison leaping finale that dissolves into a chain dance advancing toward the audience, that audience goes wild. Mr. Lubovitch and his dancers deserve every bravo.

Courtesy, New York Times