Gallim Dance Presents World Premier "Whale" at the Joyce

"Whale" is a mammoth piece performed into 2 parts.  Thankfully, this allowed needed air to vent its blowhole.  The curtain rose on 7 dancers prone singing the lyrices to Nat King Cole's "L-O-V-E" rolling helter skelter.  The piece is awash in a heavy handed interpretation of "Love is more than just a game for two."  The dancers engage in frenetic, sexual entanglements.  The choreography by Andrea Miller (2014 Guggenheim Fellowship Award) was aerobatic & combative.  At times, the aggressive feats were astounding.  (I feared feet striking dancers' faces.)   The overt sexuality was more bombastic than sensual.  The dancers bared their all admirably.  The focus centered around a male/female couple. Their torrid liaison ended with the male plying for love only to be coldly rebuffed.  The nudity was not purely gratuitous.  There were interesting partnerings &  structural formations.  I felt the poignancy of grief at the end of the 1st half.  A nude male dancer tried making his ephemeral presence felt by 3 mourners already losing his grasp.  Still, the male dancer refused to go gently into the night.  The 2nd half evoked an underwater aesthetic with turgid, aquatic movements.  The trancelike moments were an interesting juxtoposition to the intense energy.  The dancers efforts became directed at budging the implacable spurned lover.  The fickle female has a change of heart.  She ensnares her ex-lover by ingratiating herself unabashedly & relentlessly. As they say, 2 in love can make it.  The ensemble's jubilant celebration aroused another singing of "L-O-V-E" danced au natural.  There were moments that anyone would adore.  But,"Whale" was drowned down and my heart just couldn't take it.