{"id":281634,"date":"2026-06-29T21:51:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T21:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281634\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T21:51:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T21:51:40","slug":"impressions-lydia-johnson-dance-at-new-york-live-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281634\/","title":{"rendered":"IMPRESSIONS: Lydia Johnson Dance, at New York Live Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Features<\/a> > Impressions <\/a>The Dance Enthusiast’s Brand of Review\/Thoughts on What We See \n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"IMPRESSIONS:\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Published on June 29, 2026
L. Johnson’s “Ode”; Photo: Christopher Duggan<\/p>\n

*header photo Dancer ID’s Gabriel Sharp, Gion Treichler, Oscar Antonio Rodriguez, Jamie Robinson and Michael Miles\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Choreography: Lydia Johnson
Music: Lera Auerbach, Johann Paul von Westhoff, Nico Muhly, Ludovico Einaudi, Terry Riley, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Henryk G\u00f3recki
Lighting Design: Ren\u00e9e Molina
Costume Concepts: Lydia Johnson, Laura Di Orio<\/p>\n

Dancers: Laura Di Orio, MinSeon Kim, Michael Miles, Cara McManus, Oscar Antonio Rodriguez, Catherine Gurr, Emily Sarkissian, Maia Culbreath, Emma Conrad, Natalia Nikitin, Gracie Zytynski, Gabriel Sharp, Gion Treichler, Jamie Robinson<\/p>\n

New York Live Arts
June 18-20, 2026<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a sameness to the vocabulary, construction, tone, and presentation of Lydia Johnson<\/a>\u2019s choreography.\u00a0 Yet, it\u2019s like chocolate ice cream.\u00a0 Sure, every spoonful tastes the same, but who\u2019s complaining?\u00a0 This month, at New York Live Arts, Johnson\u2019s scrumptious choreography was put on display in \u201cStirrings of the Heart,\u201d a quadruple bill of premieres and older dances performed by the choreographer\u2019s fourteen-member, 27-year-old company, Lydia Johnson Dance, supplemented by students from her New Jersey-based Lydia Johnson Dance School.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though some may classify Johnson\u2019s choreography as ballet, it\u2019s more akin to modern dance.\u00a0 Performed in soft ballet slippers, it lacks pointe work, shows an affinity for the lower levels of space, and makes expressive use of spiraling torsos.\u00a0 And while danced with a ballet-trained dancer\u2019s clarity of line, technical strength, and precision, its vocabulary is weight-acknowledging, gesture-driven, and only slightly seasoned with classical ballet steps.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Lydia Johnson Dance\u00a0 in Ode;\u00a0Photo: Christopher Duggan<\/p>\n

Highly attentive to the music, both structurally and emotionally, Johnson\u2019s image-based choreography is built largely of pauses and positions.\u00a0 There\u2019s little in the way of flow or momentum.\u00a0 Yet the choreography doesn\u2019t feel static, but rather restful, spare, thoughtfully designed, and imbued with the serious conveyance of strong, though never over-sized feelings.\u00a0 When the dancers move through space, they charge, with clear deliberate intention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t carelessly sweep, swing, or meander.\u00a0 And we get wonderful communal messaging from the choreography\u2019s nurturing, humanistic gestures and abundance of unison ensemble work.\u00a0 Dancers often hold hands, place a palm on a partner\u2019s shoulder, reach around a waistline to support a backward arch, or come together to join in the shared making of striking group formations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Cara McManus and Michael Miles in Evening.;Photo:\u00a0 Christopher Duggan<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s opener, the New York premiere of Evening is distinguished by gratifying thematic use of a gorgeous two-body image.\u00a0 A six-part work set to a pleasing variety of classical music (ranging from the Baroque Era to contemporary compositions), it launches as a circle of couples walk and then freeze in an abstracted version of a traditional ballroom dance closed position.\u00a0 The position is then repeated, varied, and referenced throughout the piece, as Johnson prompts us to consider what human \u201cconnection\u201d looks like.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Legacy (2024), we\u2019re made to think further about the meaning of human relationships as the choreography makes visible the work\u2019s title concept.\u00a0 Set to Terry Riley\u2019s 1964 minimalist groundbreaker “In C”, the piece starts a bit heavy-handedly, with young children being carried across the stage by adult dancers.\u00a0 But as the dance progresses, the children literally get caught up in the action as they are lifted, spun, and dragged through the space in what evolves into quite entertaining choreography.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Natalia Nikitin and child Elise Boikess held by unidentified dancer in Legacy;\u00a0Photo: Christopher Duggan<\/p>\n

The affecting images driving Ode, a world premiere set to selections from Aleksandra Vrebalov\u2019s \u201cSea Ranch Songs,\u201d are stunning.\u00a0 We see linear arrangements of separate male and female ensembles, at times with forearms draped woefully across the brow, hand on heart, or in twisted leans against a diagonal line of chairs.\u00a0 Viewers may see reminiscences of the ancient Greek friezes-inspired body and arm positions from Jerome Robbins\u2019 Antique Epigraphs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Lydia Johnson Dance\u00a0 in Ode\u00a0; Photo: Christopher Duggan(1)<\/p>\n

A bit livelier than the other works, the program closer, Undercurrent (2018), is fueled by rousing Henryk G\u00f3recki music, and features a touching image of dancers drawing an imaginary protective \u201cbubble\u201d in the air surrounding their partner.\u00a0 Yet most impressive is the way Johnson uses tiny student-dancers (adorably!) to introduce a simple prancing step that is then developed by sets of increasingly older dancers until it transforms into what registers as a celebratory folk dance signaling \u201cwe\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Company in Undercurrent; Photo:\u00a0 Christopher Duggan<\/p>\n

Ultimately, an evening of Johnson\u2019s choreography leaves one with an all-encompassing sense of caring.\u00a0 We feel how carefully the choreography is crafted and executed.\u00a0 And in watching how caringly the dancers relate to one another, we see how beautiful it is to move through life guided by such sentiments.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

The Dance Enthusiast Shares IMPRESSIONS\/our brand of review, and creates conversation.
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The Dance Enthusiast<\/a> – News, Reviews, Interviews and an Open Invitation for YOU to join the Dance Conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Features > Impressions The Dance Enthusiast’s Brand of Review\/Thoughts on What We See Published on June 29, 2026L.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1113,1112,1126,1121,1116,1125,1117,1114,1106,1127,1111,1123,1107,1124,9,11,10,1118,1109,1120,1108,1122,1110,1119,1115],"class_list":["post-281634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-a-day-in-the-life","tag-a-day-in-the-life-of-dance","tag-african-dance","tag-ballet","tag-barefootnotes","tag-contemporary-dance","tag-dance","tag-dance-up-close","tag-features","tag-flamenco","tag-from-the-press","tag-hip-hop","tag-impressions","tag-modern-dance","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nyc-dance","tag-postcards","tag-qa","tag-reviews","tag-tap","tag-the-dance-enthusiast-asks","tag-the-dance-enthusiast-hits-the-streets","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}