Mid-Life Movement

The five dancers rehearsing on a recent Sunday in a light-filled
studio near Union Square are very much working in the moment, yet collectively
they embody decades of significant dance memories and associations. As they
pass through the contrasting solos, duets and trios of Gus Solomons’ new Royal
Redux, before coming together again at the end, they move and interact with
a degree of spontaneity and sophistication, along with intelligence and
individuality, cultivated through their years of performing with major
companies.

Solomons’ dance is one of two premieres on the program that
Paradigm—the unusual company he founded 15 years ago along with Carmen De
Lavallade and Dudley Williams—is offering at St. Mark’s Church this week. All
three dancers had crossed paths 50 years ago, performing with Donald McKayle’s
modern-dance troupe, and each has moved along different paths to work with
important choreographers.

In 1996, Solomons made A Thin Frost for the trio of
then-veterans to perform at a specific event, and soon after they were being
invited to perform it again. Another work followed, and Paradigm was born.

“The idea was to find things that older dancers could do
after virtuosity,” Solomons says following rehearsal at the studio, which has
been his home base since the 1970s. (Along with his dancing, Solomons also writes
regular dance criticism for Gay City News.)

After running through her new solo, Tango with Ghosts,
De Lavallade pulls up a chair and adds: “The more experience you have, the more
you grow into things, and know what you’re doing.”

It may be the only dance company with a minimum age
requirement—only those 50 and up need apply—and that’s why Robert La Fosse, the
former principal for American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, has just
qualified.

In Royal Redux, La Fosse joins Sarita Allen (a dynamic
Alvin Ailey company stalwart), Michael Blake (whose résumé includes the troupes
of Murray Louis, José Limon and Donald Byrd), Hope Clarke (an early Ailey
dancer with major Broadway credits as both performer and choreographer) and
Valda Setterfield, the unique dance and theater luminary who performed with
Merce Cunningham’s company for 10 years. Its overlapping sections vary from
forceful declamations to dreamy incantations, with many different possible
pairings explored. The piece has an original score (guitar, percussion and
synthesizer) by Matthew Flory Meade and Kyle Olson, who will perform it
live.

Solomons performed with both Martha Graham and Cunningham
(where he overlapped with Setterfield) before moving on to form his own
company. Contemplating the range of backgrounds represented by his five cast
members, he says, “The mixture of those aesthetics is a blessing and a curse—because
sometimes dancers who are mostly theatrical have trouble embracing the idea of
movement for its own sake.”

For Tango with Ghosts, De Lavallade—regal and elegant
at 80—was inspired by an Astor Piazzolla composition that incorporates snippets
of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “I liked this piece because of the tempo
changes; it goes and comes, strong and soft,” she explains. An acclaimed
actress as well as a luminous dancer, she draws on both talents in the solo
that alludes to various dancers and choreographers who have been influential in
her life. She says the solo draws on “images of things that occurred over time.
It’s all a part of me. As it evolved, I got little glimpses and different
things kept popping in my head. I thought of ghosts from my past.”

De Lavallade also performs in a quartet—along with Solomons,
Blake and Karen Brown—by Kate Weare titled Idyll that Paradigm introduced
last year. A Thin Frost, Paradigm’s signature work—in which the dancers
express themselves vocally with great gusto—has been performed by many different
combinations of dancers, but for the first time, it will be an all-male trio,
with Blake joining original cast members Solomons and Williams. The program
also includes a solo by Kyle Abraham, who was a student of Solomons and will
“represent the future.”

Back in 1996, they might not have known that Paradigm had
such a robust future ahead of it, but here it is, going strong after 15 years.
“It keeps us occupied,” De Lavallade says, drily. “I find it’s not about
‘older’ or ‘younger’: It’s what you have to say. If you’ve got something to
say, people are going to watch.”

Paradigm

April 14–16, Danspace Project, St. Mark’s Church, 131 E.
10th St. (at 2nd Ave.), 866-811-4111;
8, $18.