That’ll Be the Day…
Smokey Joe’s Cafe…
Peggy Sue…
Oh my! Buddy Holly had all those hits and more before his tragic death in a plane crash at only the age of 22!!
It’s not just you and me — more importantly it’s creative polymath Trey McIntyre who takes us down memory lane to admire Buddy Holly’s musical legacy, and the tragedy of his early demise in MayDay, BodyTraffic’s opener at The Joyce.
The eight dancers sport Holly’s trademark black glasses, grey suit and tie— but with bare midriff cutaways. Sometimes the dancers snap their bare bellies to the beat— or their partner in a pas de deux. It’s but one of dozens of whimsical gestures McIntyre has laced into MayDay, his homage to Holly and reminder of life’s fragility, both.
The ensemble carefully cradles a bright red airplane. We imagine it’s Holly himself on his life’s brief flight before the MayDay call. Keeping its treasure aloft, one or another dancer seems to launch into flight like the plane, grabbing our focus to the preternatural physical prowess of BodyTraffic’s dancers. They fly, they become a happy feet caterpillar, they pair as if in a three legged race sans rope, and they move-move-move. Making McIntyre’s lamentation on how we happily soldier on in life without regard to our end, the ensemble resolves into a treadmill marathon with superstar dancer Joan Rodriguez accelerating in the center beyond what we might think humanly possible.
It’s difficult for this reviewer to think of an opener more exhilarating than BodyTraffic’s selection of MayDay.
Joyce Theater Right-Sized for BodyTraffic Stagecraft
Akin to an adagio chaser, I Forgot the Start takes us on a more contemplative and almost mournful exploration of life’s fragility, that choreographer Matthew Keenan describes as “..We are reminded that there is no light without dark.”
Diaphanous costumes invite us into the work’s soul of otherworldliness. Later, lighting effects transform the ensemble into black and white silhouettes in frozen statue poses, while our attention zooms into the details of two dancers.
You too might feel how intertwined the choreography makes them even when they are not touching. This is a treasure of detail and subtlety, in this writer’s opinion. It’s like a script you find so rich you long to re-read it again as soon as the play concludes.
Sugar Shack Finale
If you too adore the explosion of dance in Ernie Barnes’ work and especially the oft-celebrated Sugar Shack, we find our kindred spirit in Juel D. Lane and his Barnes salute, Incense Burning on a Saturday Morning: The Maestro.
We are not only in the dance hall’s joy explosion, we are inside Barnes’ head. Brushstrokes across the stage animate the dancers. We are mesmerized by his muse in the yellow dress, as he is. We get lost in that place where bright colors and energy explosions become one. We feel the Sugar Shack characters grabbing each BodyTraffic dancer in a fast switching partner dance.
How perfect that BodyTraffic ends its Joyce program with such a jubilant note! This reviewer, a newbie to BodyTraffic’s charms, walked away thinking not of LA’s legendary traffic jams, but of the seamless flow on cloverleafing highways. Not a moment of gridlock here. BRAVO!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
WHEN:
April 15-20, 2025
WHERE:
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue
NYC
TICKETS:
$12+
For more information and tickets visit the Joyce Theater website.
Images courtesy of Joyce Theater
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About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
