The New Stuff

“New Stuff” (P.S.122, May) offered an intriguing mix of younger choreographers—this batch coincidentally all female. In memory collections, Tania Isaac skillfully harnessed the maximum power of each of the dance’s elements: the controlled slo-mo strength of her African-based style, well-edited video and slide segments, and the embodiment of female strength and dignity. InParadise?, as a moderately convincing Charlie’s Angel, Kari Hoaas (the program’s curator) invoked snippets of saucy gestures—pouty lips, tousled hair, an Elvis pelvis—in an incisively subversive flirtation. A tango medley performed live on strings and piano by Las Señoritas spiced up Kate Gyllenhaal/MoCo’s frustratingly flaccid dancing and choppy phrasing in MeMyself&You.Karinne Keithley’s Tenderenda resembled, in form, Big Dance Theater’s peculiar goulash of text, movement, and music. The excerpt didn’t explain the presence of a bear and three anthropomorphic devils with tails, but their Swiss-movement-timed Three Stooges campfire routine hit a funny bone. —Susan Yung, The Village Voice