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By Christine Jowers/Follow @cmmjowers on Instagram
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Published on March 20, 2025
Henoch Spinola of Boston Dance Theater. Photo: Melissa Blackall
Presented in Partnership with Global Arts Live
WHO: Co-Directors of Boston Dance Theater- Itzik Galili and Jessie Jeanne Stinnett
Performers: Sean Pfieffer, Henoch Spinola, Jessie Jean Stinnett, Wesley Urbanzyck,
Ameia Mikula-Noble, Adaline Ohman
Choreographers: Itzik Galili, Roya Carreras Fereshtehnejad, Marco Goecke, Jessie Jeanne Stinnett
WHEN: March 14, 2025
What a pleasure to meet the talented artists of Boston Dance Theater last weekend when they performed their short, sweet, and compelling evening of repertory at Boston’s gorgeous Institute of Contemporary Art.
Itzik Galili, co-artistic director of BDT with Jessie Jeanne Stinnett, choreographed the first and second pieces of the night. Memories, the first, was excerpted from a larger 2019 work. Henoch Spinola starts off Memories, standing alone in a spotlight proclaiming his inability to erase fear, anger, borders, and narrow-mindedness. Then, to the pulsing drums of KODO, the dancing begins. The company, mostly in unison, and in low light — as if undercover — huddles together, bodies thrusting forward with arms flying behind. The beat intoxicates. Energetic urgency surges in the movement as the sound envelopes us.
Three breakout solos take our eye away from the larger company, with the last soloist, Spinola, intriguingly followed by bright white rectangles of light. Where is he going? Before we have a chance to answer that question, the excerpt concludes, leaving us wanting more.
Galili’s second piece, If as If, a quiet, masterful comment on the balance of power in relationships, is danced by Stinnett and Spinola. The couple moves together intimately melting into one another, winding their way around and through spaces created by each other’s bodies. Despite the ease of their actions, it’s obvious that he wants more from this partnership than she will give.
Spinola’s touch is tender, pleading “Come to me.” Stinnett’s gestures are cold and disinterested. Despite this frosty attitude, she smoothly glides along, repeatedly diving softly through Spinola’s outstretched encircling arms, effortlessly balancing seated on his lap, and then quietly hinging her body away as he holds her hips supportively. Much of the dance happens in a loop, demonstrating a pattern of going-through-the-motions, as in an ill-fated marriage.
In If as If, Galili astutely employs a gentle flowing quality and repetition to simultaneously reveal hostility and desire. He and the performers show us that these two states can be different sides of the same coin. It would be emotionally healthy in reality (but less artistically interesting) if Stinnett, simply punched Spinola in the gut and went on her merry way. Instead, she draws out his torture, continually repelling him with a slight push to a most vulnerable point, just under his chin. She is passive aggression in action.
At the beginning of the evening we listen to a recorded vocal collage of the artists (maybe just the choreographers) speaking about red and what it means to them: nostalgia, curiosity, passion, depression, blood power, etc. Between each piece a choreographer tells us about their particular offering and how red figures into it. While the introductory collage was fine, the stories of each choreographer would have benefitted from a good edit. Thankfully this didn’t detract from the performance as a whole.
Red is a feeling, choreographed by Roya Carreras Fereshtehnejad, had its world premiere this evening. In her quartet, Carreras Fereshtehnejad recalls her experiences of being hospitalized while fighting for her life as a young cancer patient. Episodes of action and sensation float along the stage with a surreal logic, as if we’re privy to the choreographer’s fevered dream state.
Three dancers sport stylized, almost elegant, hospital-like gear colored in muted shades of blue, green, and yellow. They are also covered with sheer gowns (like surgical garb) which they remove at points. A fourth dancer whose most distinctive clothing element is a sports jacket (making him out as an administrator or doctor of some sort) moves with the group. At the start the corps breathes together. Rhythmically they exhale, in unison — three staccato breaths out as they hunch their torsos forward and down — while their fourth breath, a long inhale, lifts them to stand. There is labor to this, as if it takes all the effort in the world to grab healthy air.
Stinnett breaks into a solo at the top of the piece in which she dances while humming a plaintive melody. There is an innocence in her performance and sound that reminds me of the vulnerable nature of humanity, especially in the antiseptic setting of a hospital. At moments she lifts up her shirt forcing us to see her her pain, her wound, her scars. In another solo, later in the work, Wesley Urbanczyk dances brilliantly, showing an extraordinary technical facility, balancing languorous elasticity with fluttering staccato precision.
In a duet between Sean Pfeiffer and Stinnett the two seem so enmeshed one wonders if the dancers are indeed two people or one individual. Often a group of dancers swarm around a soloist. At one point, Pfeiffer is seated on wheeled white chair being rolled around as Stinnett dances alone in a circle of light. He reaches out to her with such longing. He could be a friend or doctor wanting to help, another patient feeling desperation, he could be seeing the soloist as a real person or a mirage. Shifting scenarios invite open interpretation, and there is distinct pleasure in that.
Marco Goeke’s minimalistic Firebird Pas de Deux, which had its US premiere last year at the ICA, is a crisp, explosive, and delightful delicacy. While far away from the traditional “Firebird,” here every element — dancing, costuming, and cool wintry lighting— convincingly support the wild fantasy that two humans, Stinnett and Urbanczyk, barefoot, in black pants —one’s torso corseted in red and the other in a white muscle shirt — are indeed fascinating magical birds in dialogue.
Jessie Jeanne Stinnett: my goodness that woman is busy. In addition to founding, and co-directing BDT, she is in most every piece of the evening, dancing (and singing) beautifully. The night concludes with her choreography, an appealing, and zesty romp into the fabulous 1950’s, called (what else but) Fifties. Another world premiere!
While one can’t help wanting to sing and dance along with the company to the great music by Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles (only a few of the musicians evoked in this work), I have to say that by this point in the evening some of the dancers looked a little tired. They're so good at their exacting contemporary dance particulars, but the kind of all-out energy one needs to inhabit and sustain an upbeat, theatrical finale, well that’s a different animal all together. Ameia-Mikula Noble’s effervescent dancing embodied the 50’s rhythms and Urbanczyk, too, gave their all to the rock-around-the-clock genre.
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