Limón Dance Company Kicks Off Dazzling Performances at Joyce Theater

More than fifty years after José Limón, one of the fathers of modern American dance passed, locals can catch a new reiteration of his one of his greatest works “Mazurkas.” It will be coupled with “Join” a work of renowned Canadian-American choreographer Aszure Barton.

Both will be at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea in a dazzling and energetic one-week show from October 6 to 11.

“Mazurkas” was created in 1958 at the height of Limón’s career. He was a key figure in the American modern dance movement from the 1930s to the 1960s. Canadian-American choreographer Aszure Barton, known for her innovative dance movements and the founder of Aszure Barton & Artists has been showcased globally and collaborated with the Juilliard School and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Both shows with their teams of dancers exhibit visceral examples of mesmerizing techniques, simultaneously showing a sense of a gravity and levity.

“Mazurkas,” which Limón said was inspired by the resiliency of the Polish people after World War II, was reconstructed with the expertise of Limón Dance Company’s associate artistic director Logan Kruger a former dancer of the prestigious company.

Limón was born in 1908 in Culiacán, Mexican, the eldest of eleven children. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1915, where he began his studies as an art major at UCLA, but in 1928 came to New York to study at the New York School of Design. After attending a dance performance, he realized his true calling and enrolled at the Humphrey-Weidman School and Company, where he learned and eventually furthered the movement principle of “fall and recovery” which pervades and inspires the dances he created throughout his career.

As part of a state sponsored tour, The Limón Company was invited to perform around the world, including a tour through Poland after World War II, a country ravaged by the devastation of conflict. But in its recovery he saw the resilience and strength of the Polish people, and was inspired by their tenacity to rebuild. His work, with its focus on breath, weight, suspension and opposition, utilized all these tenets so to create the moving choreography of “Marzukas,” that Limón adapted to incorporate traditional folk dance with his triple-meter dance signature known as the “Limón Technique.”

The Joyce Theater at 175 Eighth Avenue is as noteworthy as the productions it is hosting. It was originally built in 1941 as a movie theater, and purchased by Eliot Felt and Cora Cahan in 1979 to convert into what we now know as its current form as a dance performance venue, and a historic and integral part of the artistic community of Chelsea, celebrating 44 years of inspiring and destination-worthy performances.

The choreography was reconstructed over the course of the past year by an arduous revisitation of archival footage. Some of the videos, including silent films, required assiduous research to revive the performance to its original spirit of resilience and “hope inside of despair,” which is visible in the dancers expressions and movement, and inherent to Limón’s body of work. The performances ebb from solos to duets and ensembles, featuring individual dancers whose strengths and talents vary in different respects, but perform with such mastery of both movement and passion that embody Limón’s philosophy perfectly, more than five decades after his death.

The ensemble for “Marzukas” consists of seven dancers, performed by a revolving cast of the thirteen dancers in the company. “Join” features eleven dancers, and they come from as far as Seattle and San Francisco to locals from Brooklyn. It took two weeks to stage the choreography on the Company, who rehearse thirty-five to forty hours a week.

Costumes are simple, in a reflection of the post-war economy of Poland, and the accompanying music will be performed with a live pianist during its week-long run at The Joyce.

Tickets are available at https://www.joyce.org/performances/limon-dance-company