Liz Gerring Dance Company Performs HORIZON at the Joyce - Modern Dance to Rejoice

Artistic director Liz Gerring's HORIZON (2015) is a one hour modern dance that moves through time and space with exhilarating and dazzling choreography.  Working with her longtime musical collaborator, Michael Schumacher, they create a strong kinetic energy that is equally powerful in the subtlest movements and in the maintained staid positions.  The skillful dancers are astonishingly strong and lithe.  The original & interesting pairings all combined to create a celestial sense of boundless energy countered with a retracted pull of gravity.  The set was cleverly lit with subtle changes in hue and a constant horizontal white light at a height just above the reach of the dancers.  The costuming of varying athletic & street clothing also benefitted the multiplicity of the composition while connecting a harmonic balance.  The 7 dancers, 3 women & 4 men, are all to be commended for their athletic ability and musicality.  The tumbling gymnastics seemed a bit jarring to the fluidity of the composition.   Bravo though to a creative collaborative work of music, staging & choreography by Ms. Gerring and her Dance Company; a fervent voice in the world of modern dance.  The one hour HORIZON seemed to rise and set fleetingly.  As Ms. Gerring explains, "There is an inherent pleasure in watching bodies move.  It's the pure human spirt of just moving and to me there is something really noble about it."  Ms. Gerring has praise for her dancers, "Just the fact that these dancers have committed themselves to what they are doing, that is beautiful."