Review: Barnard dance showcase at New York Live Arts

The Barnard Dance Department showcased their talented student dancers through four pieces by renowned choreographers at their bi-annual New York Live Arts performance. 

Photo by Sherry Chen/The Barnard Bulletin

By Sydnie Loeb

March 30, 2025

Beginning on Thursday, November 21, Barnard’s esteemed dancers took four distinct pieces of choreography to the New York Live Arts stage. Performances ran that Thursday, Friday, and twice on Saturday, with a matinee and evening showing. A ground-floor stage where audience members sat above illustrated a dynamic, immersive, and unique experience for watchers. Whether performing decades-old techniques or brand-new explorative pieces, the show offered a diverse experience that captured the artistry and creativity of the Barnard dance department. 

The first act of the evening, “Silent Flight,” was a newly choreographed piece by NiNi Dongnier, Curator of Special Projects and Artistic Associate at Barnard. Described as a “performative landscape” in the program, the piece looked and felt like part of a dream sequence. The prop — a box with a screen flashing different patterns and colors — was accompanied by corresponding sounds and shifts in dancers’ focus, which added a layer of nuance to the dance.

The piece also had a sense of mystery and ominousness. Rather than traditional musical accompaniment, “Silent Flight” took an unconventional approach to a soundscape, including beeps and dings. The dancers moved in bird-like ways, just as the title suggests — precise and weightless. Each dancer’s feathery costume was unique, but they all worked in unison. The combination of ballet techniques with edgy experimentation presented something that was simply mesmerizing. 

The second piece in the show, titled “MinEvent,” was arranged and staged by Lisa Boudreauan as an ode to the choreographer Merce Cunningham, who Boudreauan was a former dancer for. The piece showcased multiple excerpts from works like “RainForest” (1968) and “BIPED” (1999). While the dancers were dancing on the main stage, there was a small group of live singers in the left corner of the stage, very close to the audience. The program explained that the piece honored Cunningham’s signature approach of not allowing the dance and live-music accompaniment to be practiced together until the final presentation. The musical performers joined the dancers on stage and were part of the scene themselves. 

The dynamic aspects of the performance captivated my attention as every part of the stage was filled with something intriguing to look at. The dancers performed a stylized version of modern choreography. Their movements were precise, repetitive, and synchronized with one another. Similar to the previous piece, each dancer had a similar costume but with different color gradients. Most of the piece focused on a small group of dancers, but I found the parts in which every dancer was on stage to be the most interesting. This was impactful, especially at the beginning of the performance, where every dancer weaved between one another in a way that required intense amounts of spatial awareness and practice. For audience members familiar with Cunningham’s work and legacy (as I am), this felt like a rare opportunity to witness his work interpreted with a new cast in an intimate setting. 

The next piece, “Toxic Pedicure,” was choreographed by Lena Engelstein and Lisa Fagan. Providing a tonal shift from the previous piece, the beginning was completely informal, with the house lights on and dancers in different positions around the stage. Many audience members did not realize when the piece began, making the gradual quiet of the audience part of the soundscape. With props like a beach chair and an umbrella and scenes depicting a game of golf where dancers crowded around one individual who acted as if she was at the tee, the piece seemed to aim at critiquing the suburban lifestyle through an eccentric and comedic lens. The dancers, dressed in quirky, mismatched jumpsuits with cloud-printed shirts underneath, underwent sharp transitions in movement and music from upbeat songs like Modjo’s “Lady Hear Me Tonight” to silence, with the repetitive sound of a sprinkler transporting the audience from a disco to a front lawn at nighttime. 

The final scene had one dancer in a cloud-printed dress balletically dancing around the cast, staring blankly into the audience, eating apples (and one banana), and spitting them out. This scene was simultaneously disturbing and powerful. Audience members, including myself, were left to ponder the deeper meaning behind this chaos. The dancers’ commitment to their characters brought this story and meaning to life.

The show concluded with a new piece by Bo Park called “Back Again.” This piece was the most uplifting of the four as it celebrated individuality and community. Dressed in simple costumes of army green, the dancers were the main focus. Moving through a collage of hip-hop, contemporary, and modern-inspired choreography, the piece was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The music was an eclectic and upbeat mixture of tracks accompanied by aura-like lighting. In between songs, a background slideshow played a montage of personal moments from the cast with empowering quotes spoken over it that gave the piece a coming-of-age quality. Overall, the performance felt energized and polished. The dancers showed off their skill and camaraderie, and connection, laughing and smiling together in a way in which audience members couldn’t help but do the same. This piece stood out to me and ended the night on a positive and inspiring note. 

As the show concluded and applause filled the intimate setting, it felt as if we had fed off of that sense of community all in unison. The showcase was more than a performance, it was a unique expression of artistry that is a signature quality of Barnard College.