Jan Van Dyke Dance Group. - Rosenthal Theater, University of NOrth Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina - dance reviews

Dance Magazine, April, 1998 by Chris Hawley

Jan Van Dyke, whose choreographic career spans more than thirty years and work with several earlier companies, is an associate professor of dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where her new troupe presented these performances.

As a former Van Dyke student and company member, I watched the presentation of six works, dating over twelve years, with a knowledge of her distinct view of modem dance, which includes a stringent awareness of form and technique, detailed rhythmical understanding, rich gestures, and an exploration of relationships.

Her older works--Round Dance (1985), Slow Retreat From Center (1990), and A Sense of Order (1990)--attend to these qualities with intense precision and fierce punctuality, but their cool demeanor left me wanting something more of them aesthetically. With the three newer works--The Thin Blue Line (1998), The Long Goodbye (1998), and Quatre Femmes (1997)--this desire was fulfilled. Although Van Dyke masters form, technique, musicality, and relationships in all her works, her most current creations have a warmth and a softness that, juxtaposed against her precision, offer her fullest capabilities as a choreographer.

Round Dance and Slow Retreat From Center use different eras of music by Peter Gabriel, a nearly perfect match for Van Dyke's sensibilities of rhythm and power. Round Dance, her most tribal work, is a mass of driving foot-work and traveling sequences. It is fierce, yet at times the performers were too controlled in their projection. Slow Retreat is intricately crafted and exhibits her expert ability to express emotion and character through hand gestures and design rather than through drama. A Sense of Order's linear patterns and pedestrian-like gestures created an industrial, tightly wound piece. In these works, Van Dyke builds intense anticipation and escalating climax through interwoven designs of rhythmic movement and variations in timing, ending each work powerfully on a single image of finality.

Van Dyke's most current works show a greater development of dance vocabulary and sensuality. The Thin Blue Line is an intoxicating explosion of movement set to music by the Cocteau Twins. The Long Goodbye, a duet crafted to Mozart's subtle nuances, was the concert's most succinct and poignant work. Gentle and fluid, the piece delicately explores coming together and letting go. It is sacred in its purity and simplicity. Quatre Femmes ends the evening with a buoyant and vivacious jaunt through a landscape of four women and space, seducing the observer to yearn for more of Van Dyke's work.