The two-act Beyond Babel, at The Gym at Hudson, is being promoted as “a narrative urban dance riff on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.” So, of course, is West Side Story, which coincidentally(?) is now revived uptown (with a February 20 opening) and may be the Broadway season’s most anticipated production. That’s if you go by the overwhelming advance publicity and advertising, which is hard not to go by.
Since comparisons are supposed to be odious and since I haven’t yet seen Ivo van Hove’s buzzed-about revival (revisal? revision?) with its new Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker routines, there isn’t going to be any comparison here.
Instead, I advise any and all entertainment hunters for contemporary Romeo and Juliet dance updates to boogie right on over to the Hideaway Circus project. It’s choreographed by company artistic directors Keone and Mari Madrid—with Josh and Lyndsay Aviner as creative directors—and reaches Manhattan after a 125-performance 2018 run at a pop-up San Diego theater.
Maybe “boogie” is an inaccurate verb to land on as the mode of travel. Boogie-ing isn’t exactly what the Madrids and 10 other double- and triple-jointed terpers are doing with enough stamina to run a country the size of, say, Australia. The troupe’s moves are not derived from “boogie” but from, among other influences, break dancing, from Toni Basil, from angular hip-hop gestures, and from Madonna’s “Vogue” video. Many searing steps abound that can also be noted in current musicals like David Byrne’s American Utopia and Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill. Occasionally, the buff Madrids even draw on the contraction-and-release mode so much a part of Martha Graham’s ground-breaking technique.
These elements are synthesized into a new West Side Story-by-way-of-Romeo and Juliet that’s as exciting—or close to as exciting—as its acclaimed West Side Story predecessor. For this one, Keone Madrid is Romeo/Tony and Mari Madrid is Juliet/Maria, with Fabian Tucker as a new figure who frequently appears in fencing-like mask to act as the cause of the gangs’ volatile divisiveness. Incidentally, the warring gangs are eventually identified by red (Sharks?) and blue (Jets?) wrist bands the Fabian character attaches. It’s a color scheme electrifyingly played up by the Jeff Croiter-Sean Beach lighting.
Though the stage is often bare to allow for sequences like a seeming dance at a gym (yoo-hoo, WSS), just as often tall metal frames on casters—some with chain-link—are rolled out to form the physical and metaphorical wall between the gangs. Often the frames are covered with colorful crocheted piece. So is the proscenium, which features a “Love Endures” slogan, although whether love actually does endure is questioned by the Shakespeare-derived plot. (It could be that love kept from enduring is what really guarantees the tragedy’s 400-plus-year’s endurance.)
The music—not, to be sure, by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim—is piped in from 30-plus sources like, to name only a few, Jacob Banks, Years & Years, and since this is her year, five-time Grammy-clutcher Billie Eilish. All inclusions, well chosen as they are, add to the Beyond Babel romance, suspense and suggestion that the tragic action is very much taking place in 2020. .
As the star-crossed lovers the Madrids feature themselves. Before the final black-out, they have contributed three (or is it more?) breakdance pas de deux of breathtaking virtuosity. More than that, though, they make it clear they’re determined to be appreciated as part of an ensemble—all members often wearing matching beige costumes as they execute their numerous drills.
The other dancers—not one ever making a false step or allowing an errant hand gesture and each repeatedly given the spotlight—are Olivia Battista, Melissa De Jesus, Noelle Franco, Selene Haro, Shannon Kelly, Samuel Moore, Dylan Mayoral, Julian Sena and, if there’s a first among equals, Mikey Ruiz.
As good, as strong, as exhilarating, as beautiful as Beyond Babel is, it’s also longer than it needs to be at telling the R&J story once again. The attenuation is due, to a large extent, to the eventual repetition of today’s trendily hands-heavy gyrations. All the same, the problem is somewhat vitiated by the unflagging energy the troupe exhibits. How do they do it? Hours spent in exercise classes where no amount of stretching can be too much must account for part of the answer.
By the way, the Beyond Babel title is elusive. It can’t mean that speech itself has been discarded, which is true of most, if not all, dance. Throughout these hopping proceedings, the dancers do speak to each other from time to time—and even to the patrons (who’ve been encouraged to talk and shout back). Nothing especially cogent is uttered, but the banter is there.
Never mind: Once again, the course of true love not running smoothly as a result of society-bred intolerance is held up and once again made an urgently pressing matter.
Beyond Babel opened February 1, 2019, at the Gym at Judson Theater and runs through March 25. Tickets and information: beyondbabelshow.com
