| ELISA MONTE DANCE REVIEWS "Hard-driving works that allowed viewers little respite from choreography that seems predicated on generating enough energy to illuminate a small city. Even at those rare moments when the eight superb dancers are in the repose, the feeling of tension bubbling beneath the surface rarely disappears. The Green Movement really should take Monte seriously. The tone is volatile, even explosive; the dancing is never less than stunning." -- Allan Ulrich, Voice of Dance, March 2008 "Silver and gray were the colors for dress Saturday night at the Latino Cultural Center, but for Elisa Monte Dance liquid gold was the color of movement. Two contrasting influences were at play – Martha Graham's weight shifts, elongated lines and the use of the torso as a starting point. (Ms. Monte was a principal dancer with the Graham company.) The other influence was Alvin Ailey and African dance, with its emphasis on pulsating rhythms. The combination created a rippling tide of moment, with every turn and leap flowing seamlessly into the next. Space itself expanded and contracted. Dancers surged forward and retreated, changing tempos and direction. Even when Ms. Monte deployed dancers in tidy groups, they soon fanned out with limbs shooting out at rakish angles. In Shattered, eight dancers exploded in different directions, like shafts of wheat scattered by a burst of wind." -- Margaret Putnam, Dallas Morning News, March 3, 2008 At 25, a Company Mixes Rigor With Emotion (and Kinetic Virtuosity) "She likes formalism and she likes humanistic expression. She evokes rigorous patterns yet leavens them with the theatrical emotionality of earlier modern dance. Above all she loves intricate leaps and lifts and knotty combinations of bodies. Add to that an octet of fine dancers, handsome lighting and a strong feeling for alluring new music, and you have the ingredients for a fine evening of dance. Impressive!" -- John Rockwell, The New York Times, September 21, 2006 The New York Times: February 4, 2005, and February 15, 2003 "Persuasive top-notch, utterly committed dancing and choreographic invention that spans more than two decades…” -- Sylvaine Gold, New York Newsday "Your lovely company looks at the top of its form - strong, sensuous, spiritual. It is always a great pleasure to present them and to see how well the public always receives them. Lincoln Center is proud of its connection with your company. " -- Jenneth Webster, Lincoln Center Out-Of-Doors, New York City "The company allows the audience to participate in the imaginative life of each work." -- The New York Times "Physically intense and sensual, the Elisa Monte Dance Company echoes classical styles without ever losing sight of the modern..." -- New York Magazine “I can understand why this company filled a 4000 seat opera house in Siberia with a cheering crowd new to modern dance.…The work is legible and muscular, and beautiful, serious people dance it lavishly." -- The Village Voice “…there is a fresh, vital new look to [Monte’s] work…” -- Jennifer Dunning, New York Times “A gorgeous, sleek collection of movement machines from all reaches of the globe.” -- PaulBen Itzack, Dance Insider “Stunning as ever. Both choreographers exploit the power of superb dancers whose legs shoot high and whose bodies arch until you think they might crack – with each kick, spin, or leap they seem to cry out, ‘Oh my God!’ in ecstasy or desperation.” -- Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice “The performance reminds us what life is about and the beauty that is possible through dance.” -- Audience Member, Fredonia, New York “Not too many dance companies whose members lay claim to such a diversity of backgrounds… explosive, sultry, balletic, luminous, athletic vivid, saucy, and dapper.” -- New York Newsday “An exceptional company… a performance of the highest quality. The audience cheered, stomped, and whistled – they loved it!” -- John Ellis, Diana Wortham Theater “Invention of a delicate and moving gesture that gives birth to a moment of rare grace.” -- Le Progres “Ferocious energy… superb dancers… a performing tour de force.” -- Jennifer Dunning, New York Times “Elisa Monte and David Brown succeed in creating a unity through the sythesis of music, dance, and light. This unity fascinates through imagery and dynamic movement.” -- Sylvia Garcia, Switzerland “Sheer beauty of picture-perfect moments.” -- The Straits Times, Singapore “The dancers displayed a crescendo of gestural situation, where the old barriers separating jazz, afro-Cuban, and modern dance are completely obliterated, to make way for a very instinctual and musical method of interpreting choreography." -- Corriere de Messogiorno, Italy
Elisa Monte’s “Treading” performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: "Elisa Monte’s 'Treading,' a modern-dance classic that deserved the roar of approval it received as the curtain fell on Friday. The duet, to music by Steve Reich, is a warm, primeval ooze of lovemaking. An unbroken golden thread of a Kama Sutra exercise for dancers, 'Treading' requires sustained physical strength and delicacy, both of which it got from Ms. Sims and Clifton Brown as the lovers, each exuding a shining clarity that made the duet into something exalted. The program was completed by Ulysses Dove’s 'Urban Folk Dance' and Ailey’s 'Revelations.' And why not a 'Treading' with same-sex lovers? Now that would be a groove." “[Feu Follet] was a smashing success. Seamlessly incorporating the rich influences of Cajun music, dance and storytelling with a modern dance vocabulary, artistic director Elisa Monte has created a sensuous, spirited and totally satisfying portrait of a thriving, ever-changing culture and tightly united community.” -- The Times Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana “A patchwork of delights and distractions make up Feu Follet, the intriguing new work by Elisa Monte Dance. A celebration of Cajun culture… The choreography achieves a beautiful, hell-bent fury as it effortlessly intertwines narrative and emotion… What makes Feu Follet so memorable is, ultimately, and quite simply, dance and music. Nothing else really matters.” -- Timothy Hegepeth, Dance Magazine “Elisa Monte Dance… has the uncanny ability to clamp down on the audience with its dramatic intensity, while at the same time washing over it with abstractions of time, place and music.” -- The Daily Gazzette, Schenectady, New York “Why, I wondered, after witnessing the Elisa Monte Dance company’s story ballet, Feu Follet, was my heart so gladdened?… Could the unutterable happiness I felt have come from watching the company’s seven dancers – so fluid and flexible and passionate as they relayed the Acadian story… Or could it have been the spirited, yet poignant, Cajun Music… Still yet, could it have been the life-affirming message so expressively conveyed be both dancers and musicians and so carefully woven into the ballet by choreographers Elisa Monte and husband David Brown?… [The dancers] were magnificent: graceful and strong and athletic.” -- Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine HOME |