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EXCLUSIVE REVIEWS

Review No. 25   Posted: May 16, 2005
Lawrence Goldhuber/BIGMANARTS   Danspace Project
May 13, 2005

Exhilarating! Lawrence Goldhuber’s new dance drama, Julius Caesar Superstar, does everything on a grand scale. Sure the piece has a cast of heavyweights playing Roman senators who, like the famously portly Goldhuber, carry considerable heft either through natural endowment or fat-suit enhancement, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

By “everything” I mean choreography, musical score, video, lighting, and costumes-all contributing generously to a great, sweeping work that comes on like a vest-pocket Broadway smash, all packed into the space of an hour. The production moves swifter than you might expect and never flags-just like Goldhuber and his senatorial co-conspirators. Even its excesses seem purposeful. That’s some kind of magic!

Julius Caesar Superstar takes us back in time to make a point about the present. The clownish Roman senators-among them the delightful Goldhuber, Thom Fogarty, and Rhetta Aleong (yes, a woman in drag), open the evening with lively and intricate  circle dances, red-trimmed togas aswirl. Their joyous dancing spans the length of Danspace’s floor and, along with Kathy Kaufmann’s lighting, opens it up and enlivens it in ways I’ve never seen before. In fact, nearly every part of the space gets pressed into service-the arched, stained-glass windows momentarily illuminated, the balcony visited by trumpeters to herald the approach of a war hero, the sanctuary steps turning into a sybaritic, raunchy display, the risers  transformed by a wide scrim into the steamy baths where towel-draped senators casually stroll, snooze, and plot revolution.

Julius Caesar Superstar, played by that good-looking ballet superstar Robert LaFosse (ABT, New York City Ballet, Tharp), is attended by bare-legged prancing soldiers. (Or should that be, soldiers with invisible prancing horses?) These are played, in snappy high spirits, by Arthur Aviles, Alberto Denis, Marcelo Rueda Duran, and Valentin Ortolaza, Jr. Let’s support  our troops and praise these wonderful guys. Not only are they brilliant as Roman guards but they take other roles, too. As boy servants, for instance, they have their own ritualistic circle dance (with wine vessels) featuring comely, synchronized moves and delicate crossing steps. Goldhuber’s work here is particularly gorgeous and witty. Later, the four will also play classical sculptures in the bath-how do they hold those contorted poses so long?-as well as Abu Ghraib-type  guards and political convention cheerleaders.

And then there’s Micki Wesson, the real heavyweight of the show-moral heavyweight, that is. As the mysterious soothsayer, she points her crooked staff, silently speaking truth to power. She’s got Caesar in her sights. He may cackle in scorn, but he’s a goner.

The senators, realizing that Caesar is a drunken, power-mad libertine, begin to plot against him, distancing themselves from him as he lolls about in the steam of the bath. For some dazzling moments, the scrim displays a black-and-white video of LaFosse’s face with a paranoid or death-mask expression. The image is huge. Its cold glow spills from the scrim onto the wooden floor, making the entire scene vibrate with light.

Fast forward to America of the McCarthy-ite ’50s. Caesar, stripped down to a loincloth, gets roughed up by a pack  of senators (wardrobe updated to slacks, shirts, suspenders, and ties). He’s stabbed numerous times. Goldhuber kisses him square on the mouth-hard and long-before driving home the fatal wound. Caesar survives long enough to play out a rather involved death scene culminating in a beauty of a duet with Keely Garfield as a severe but loving Lady Macbeth.  What? You don’t think that Lady Macbeth might greet Julius Caesar at Death’s door and help him cross over? Listen, they’re terrific together!

In the twinkling of an eye, we’re at a red-white-and-blue political convention complete with sparkling confetti.  Which party? Maybe it doesn’t matter. But the big number-“Can’t You Feel the Brand-New Day?”-intensely  sung by conventioneers who seem just short of rage, is entirely too reminiscent of Bush’s oft-repeated “Freedom’s  on the march in Iraq!”

Goldhuber now wears Caesar’s wreath. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

SHOW BUISNESS DANCE REVIEW

Goldhuber and Latsky
The Joyce Theater  The Altogether Different Series 2000

by Victoria Yoffe

Opposites not only attract but come together in complete harmony when Goldhuber and Latsky take the stage. The oddly matched duo, completely opposing in height and weight, achieve a perfect balance between theater and dance, able to entertain while maintaining a depth to their work that addresses identity questions and insecurities.

The title of the first work, It’s not what you think (part 1), epitomizes the success of the quirky yet powerful performances of Goldhuber and Latsky during their evening length work, I Hate Modern Dance. The piece introduces the pair as individual performers dealing with opposing stereotypes as dancers and performers. The work plays on the idea of contrast starting in the beginning of the work with Goldhuber and Latsky’s stillness while Mozart’s lyrical and powerful A Major Violin Concerto plays loudly in the background. Goldhuber often supports Latsky as her petite body jumps onto and perches off his body as well as picks up Latsky haphazardly, swinging her through the air as if a she were a doll, creating something close to a human windmill. Their movement, ranging from unusual lifts to dragging each other by the feet across the stage produced laughter and smiles from the audience while highlighting the true similarity found in difference.

In Too Much Too Little (part I) the focal point of the piece is the insecurities regarding the physical characteristics of the performers. Goldhuber appears in a costume that nearly doubles his size while Latsky stands on stage confined by her arms stretched to the ceiling by flesh toned fabric. Performing movement from a ballet vocabulary, Latsky comments on the body types society expects from a particular style and range of movement. While Latsky’s commentary comes from her movement, Goldhuber’s commentary comes from his lack of movement.

The commentary comes to a conclusion in the final piece Just the Two of Us, when mannequins resembling the performers dance with Goldhuber and Latsky, forcing them to look at and accept themselves as performers. While light hearted and clever, the work stresses that people accept themselves rather than judge themselves on the opinions and ideas of the general public.

Goldhuber and Latsky bring a new type of performance to the stage. While neither pure dance nor pure theater the merging of the two art forms creates a new and refreshing performance style that asks the audience to leave their stereotypes at the door.