Giordano Releases A Torrent Of Mostly Upbeat Energy

Laura Molzahn on March 15, 2009

Just a year after the death of founder Gus Giordano, the 46-year-old company releases a torrent of mostly upbeat energy. Brock Clawson’s new piece about relationships, Give and Take, is hardly all sweetness and light, but its five couples bring vigor and feeling to Clawson’s whiplash emotional turns. All that churning is laid over the bones of a solid, satisfying structure: Clawson, a relative newcomer to choreography, seems to have an exceptional grasp of repetition, variation, canon movement–and the element of surprise.

The other world premiere is Brand New Day, a joyous piece choreographed by company member Lindsey Leduc Brenner with input from the dancers and artistic director Nan Giordano. Accompanied by an onstage children’s choir and two professional singers performing Ira Antelis’s music, Brand New Day has an Alvin Ailey-esque bursting quality, and so does Gus Giordano’s solemn, demanding solo piece Wings. The other pieces are Jon Lehrer’s exciting A Ritual Dynamic, Christopher Huggins’s popular Pyrokinesis, and Sherry Zunker’s humorous The Man That Got Away.