RUNNING IN PLACE AMONG THE STARS:
A TRANSFIXING EVENING OF JOHAN INGER

“I hate dance reviews,” my friend says to me during intermission. There are vertical trails on her cheeks, wet where her tears made slalom paths moments ago. “What could you say that would describe what we just saw?”

I agree with her. I admit defeat. To describe, to translate, words are flimsy tools for the three Johan Inger pieces we saw, performed by the Gibney Company on Saturday evening at New York Live Arts in Manhattan. So I will not describe or translate, so much as attempt to offer a personal account.

The first piece by the Swedish dancemaker is called Rain Dogs (2011).It’s set to the warbling, throaty vocals of Tom Waits. Nine company dancers begin in a line behind one tall man emitting strained breaths and interacting with a prop radio. This gives way to a passionate constellation of bodies exiting that tight vertical line first in twos and threes, then building in verticals and diagonals, re-assembling elsewhere, like birds dispersing and convening in great swoops. The movement is shaped and muscular, as are the dancers, whose god-like bodies humble us when they shed costumes and return in undergarments at midpoint, before donning the costumes of the opposite gender for a final tango.

The movement itself follows a pattern: snaky, fluid motions (legs extended while lifting another dancer; taking turns stepping over each other as they roll on the ground) which come to a stop, then erupt fluidly into more, then come to another momentary stop. It’s refreshing to see choreography which knows all the flavors at its disposal: shapes, poses, lifts, floorwork, rolls, jumps, turns, shimmies, and, elegantly, rests.

Glitter falls from the ceiling. At the close of Rain Dogs, the same dancer we watched in the starting solo slumps out onstage, pedestrian, and sweeps the dark, luminous flecks into piles like autumn leaves. A female dancer emerges from the far curtain, running mostly in place, arms pumping swiftly, legs at right angles, beating like windshield wipers, torso breaking into the wind at the prow of an invisible ship. Slowly, gently, the sorrowful sweep of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings reach our ears. Another woman runs out to join the first. My friend and I don’t even realize this is a new piece. There is a moment when the hairs on our arms stand and we get gooseflesh. The two dancers rest facing each other, in deep plié, for a long moment, held hands crossed. They run again. The second outruns the first.

Afterward, we connect what we saw to the program notes: it’s a world premiere of a piece called When It Was.

The last piece is Bliss. During intermission, stagehands roll out white marley. It’s pure and clean. Golden lamps twinkle wetly on the black backdrop like stars. The dancers come out in colored loose button-down shirts and pants (men) and colorful dresses (women). Both genders wear tan soft-looking socks. They resemble happy children, dancing around the kindergarten schoolyard. Set to music from Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert, this piece makes me cry also. At one point, a woman slides down her partner, in an inventive human-luge twist I’ve never seen before. I want to freeze the moment and watch it again. At the end, the dancers all drift through the space, having just burst into an ecstatic unison dance party of moves in a tight cluster. They find partners and then find new partners. A man finds a woman, then the woman leaves. He finds a new woman, and those two walk hand in hand away from the others. The lights dim. The final couple enters a burning peach spotlight. I’m crying again. I couldn’t tell you what happens next. I don’t have the words.

Gibney Company Up Close: An Evening with Johan Inger
part of the annual Up Close series
New York Live Arts, 219 W 19th St.
played October 30-November 1, 2025
reviewed on November 1 at 7:30
for more info and future shows, visit Gibney Dance