Dance on the Lawn in Montclair says farewell with a highly spirited final show

TONY TURNER

Dominique Dobransky dances in Carolyn Dorfman’s “Love Suite Love” at the 2023 edition of Dance on the Lawn in Montclair.

There was no curtain to ring down, so Charmaine Warren and Laura Marchese said their goodbyes matter-of-factly. The artistic and managing directors of the Dance on the Lawn Festival addressed a crowd of well-wishers with the warmth and informality reserved for friends following the final edition of this showcase, in the rectory of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Montclair, on Sept. 9.

For 10 years, Warren, the festival’s valiant founder and guiding light, has offered this much-needed platform to artists, encouraging rising talents and also giving a boost to local dance schools. A passing rainstorm drove the show indoors this year without dampening the excitement, but dance fans will be excused if they felt a little misty. Dance on the Lawn will be missed.

The event was packed, with 15 professional organizations participating either as groups or solo artists, plus five student ensembles. A special segment was devoted to those “Emerging New Jersey Choreographers” whom Dance on the Lawn has supported over the years, including Robert Mark Burke, Kyle Marshall, Javier Padilla, Amber Sloan and Will A. Ervin Jr.

An excerpt from Burke’s Dawned featured a series of dramatic lifts, with Sarah Housepian spun in circles or pivoting in Jared McAboy’s arms, while Eric Dietz’s music rang an alarm. Marshall began his solo from Onyx downcast and staggering, his hand trembling. Yet he rose, finding a source of renewal, sensuality and self-possession in the music of Big Mama Thornton. Padilla’s journey was more ambiguous in staying behind leaving grief, a solo that featured sudden jolts and desperate gestures between poles of stillness.

In Amber Sloan’s Entanglement, duet partners Chelsea Enjer Hecht and Jordan Morley insinuated themselves into messy encounters, each hooking the other with a foot — evidently unwilling to separate, despite occasional attempts to push apart. Ervin’s showy solo, Patience, displayed the bodily articulation typical of hip-hop, alternately fluid and sharp, though here the point appeared to be a joyful working out of tensions.

In Amber Sloan’s Entanglement, duet partners Chelsea Enjer Hecht and Jordan Morley insinuated themselves into messy encounters, each hooking the other with a foot — evidently unwilling to separate, despite occasional attempts to push apart. Ervin’s showy solo, Patience, displayed the bodily articulation typical of hip-hop, alternately fluid and sharp, though here the point appeared to be a joyful working out of tensions.

TONY TURNER

Chelsea Hecht and Mark Willis at Dance on the Lawn.

Another segment of the program featured more established artists, with items by Nai-Ni Chen, Carolyn Dorfman and Donna Scro Samori leading the bill. Yet here, too, one found intriguing novelties, such as the duet Physics of Power, choreographed by Sameena Mitta. A recorded speech by Arundhati Roy described abuses on a national scale, while dancers Chelsea Hecht and Mark Willis portrayed an intimate struggle. In this brusque work of barely suppressed violence, Willis tried to contain Hecht in an embrace; though she shrank and slipped away, he seemed able to manipulate her from a distance. Estrangement was not the answer, however. Hecht and Willis turned their heads as if seeking each other and ended by falling into each other’s outstretched arms. Nations, too, must find a way to live together.

The dancers in Chen’s Lullaby for my favorite insomniac also seemed to experience complex emotions, grasping each other firmly one moment and offering tender caresses the next. After delivering a powerful performance, Rio Kikuchi and Esteban Santamaria curled up in a pile and appeared to rest. In an excerpt from Dorfman’s Keystone, Brandon Jones and Kalia Moses used their strength to create complementary shapes, and to support each other. Moses scanned the scene calmly from the safety of a perch on Jones’ back.

All these duets were filled with tension, so in their midst it was a relief to watch the lyrical flow of movement in Scro Samori’s Inside the Quiet. In this beautifully constructed piece, Juliet Goswell, Emily Ingersoll and Victoria May took turns falling away from a vertical axis, plunging, diving and breaking through barriers with an impulse that suggested rolling ocean waves.

TONY TURNER

Krystina Moreno at Dance on the Lawn.

The second half of this Dance on the Lawn program also featured various solos, with Maxine Steinman appearing crabbed and mysterious in her piece A Lily for Monet; and Megan Chu balancing on her head or shoulders in Lucky Cat, a whimsical dance whose nodding movements imitated the beckoning paw of a Japanese cat statuette.

Another humorous piece was an excerpt from Dorfman’s Love Suite Love in which Dominique Dobransky experienced the outsize pangs of romantic loss, clutching pillows and flinging herself through space.

Krystina Moreno was the saucy star of Spanish Tapas, an arrangement of traditional dances; members of Alborada Spanish Dance Theatre were equipped with shawls and accompanied by guitarist Ivan Max.

All of this, and more, brought us to the grand finale, a thunder-and-lightning tap battle between Jason Samuels Smith and Maurice Chestnut (with Smith playing thunder to Chestnut’s lightning). Rhythms poured out of them, as Smith stomped and slid, and Chestnut floated onto his toes. This shared display of virtuosity made for a terrific farewell to Dance on the Lawn.