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REVIEW: BLACK VELVET ARCHITECTURES AND ARCHETYPES
BLACK VELVET, ARCHITECTURES, AND ARCHETYPES a beautiful title for an effective and sometimes fraught dance performance. There was a lot of drama preceding the performance of this piece. It began a little late, and while the audience waited outside the theater we were warned not to take pictures, shut off our phones, adding a reminder that no one is allowed in or out of the theater after the performance began — due to the sensitive nature of the work. This felt a bit like waiting on line for a great secret to unfold; it also felt like hyperbole.
On entering the very delicate sound of bells dinged like little starbursts and set up the environment in the theater for the excellent Brazilian born dancer Mirelle Martins. She was standing on a ladder covered from the waist down with a black cloth draped into a floor-length skirt. She was very tall and had an air of otherworldliness, as she seemed to rock an imaginary baby in her arms to and fro in quiet meditation. She was naked from the waist up and had the look of a majestic ancient goddess since she was bathed in gold make-up, which made her sultry dark skin gleam as if she was standing in the moonlight. Then Shamel Pitts, an expert of Gaga; a focused and highly specialized technique of dance made famous by the unique Israeli dance company Batsheva appeared. He was superb in so many ways. His body control and…
