A Ritual Dynamic
A Ritual Dynamic
2007
10:00
Dancers - 7
Music – “White Derbakeh”, Artist unknown
“Egyptian Disco” , Dj Disse
Lighting- Kam Hobbs
Costumes – Cindy Darling
“ In the final piece, the premiere of A Ritual Dynamic, the dancers snap into action like rubber bands pulled to the max, launching their bodies into flight, aimed seemingly at thin air. Then, miraculously, another body materializes from the ether of moving space, and zot! They hit their human targets mid-flight, cradle in each other’s arrested motion for one luxurious moment, and move on.”
- Lynn Shapiro, Dance Magazine
" …a magnetic eruption of bodily shapes.”
- Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune
Bridge and Tunnel
Bridge and Tunnel
2002
14:15
Dancers - 8
Music – Paul Simon 1) Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard 2) Something So Right 3) 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover 4) Kodachrome
Lighting- John Imburgia
Costumes – Cindy Darling, after Sarah Brazo
“Jon Lehrer’s delightful Bridge and Tunnel, set Paul Simon songs, is a playful hymn to the sidewalks of the outer boroughs…it’s a first rate sample of American vernacular dance, a genre whose distinguished heritage includes Jerome Robbins’s Fancy Free, Agnes DeMille’s Rodeo, and Gene Kelley’s ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ solo.”
- Kelly Kleiman, Chicago Reader
"The virtues of Bridge and Tunnel - set in working-class New York to music by Paul Simon - are even more apparent now that it can be compared to Twyla Tharp's Movin' Out, set in working-class New York to music by Billy Joel. Tharp's show is spectacular - and you've got to love a woman who can fill a Broadway house for a dance concert with people who would never got to a dance concert. But Lehrer's piece has two advantages: its uncondescending use of colloquialism and its taste in music. Bridge and Tunnel betters Movin' Out the same way Paul Simon outstrips Billy Joel."
- Kelly Kleiman, Chicago Reader
Fused By 8
Fused by 8
2009
12:30
Dancers - 8
Muisc - Black Violin
Lighting - Kam Hobbs
Costumes - Cindy Darling
"In Fused By 8, (2009), the sculpted musicality of Immanuel Naylor’s powerful opening and closing solos, set to Bach’s Brandenburg #3, framed the musically diverse full-company piece, exploring a bound world of curved space ready to explode. Lehrer’s movement entered the music so completely as to become its visual realization. Challenging unseen spatial constraints, tightly-wound, high-force group trajectories embodied Bach’s musical complexity and integrated the urgency of “Black Violin’s” jazz variations. Lehrer grapples with this theme in the breath-taking duet section in which Jennifer Huffman and Joseph Roth defy the limits of body and balance in daring horizontal and off-center vertical lifts. The ensemble’s entrances and exits build a fugue of musical and movement motifs combining on-a-dime transitions from floor to standing to seemingly weightless flight. Quantum leaps and surprise shifts of effort and flow highlight Lehrer’s work ."
- Lynn Shapiro, Dance Writer and Chicago correspondent for Dance Magazine
“Lehrer’s work exploded from the outset in a fury of contemporary ballet movement executed by eight dancers who pitched and rocked their torsos forward and back into straight-legged extensions that rapidly flowed into quick turns and pirouettes. Lehrer’s dancers bounced, glided and somersaulted their way on and off the stage in bursts of brisk movement. Signature Lehrer in its power and intense physicality, Fused by 8 was a choreographically solid and engaging work.”
-Steve Sucato, Buffalo News
Iambus
Iambus
(2004)
Dancers - 7
Music: Bobby McFerrin and Yo Yo Ma
1) “Grace” 2) “Kalimba Suite” - McFerrin only 3) “Stars”
Costume Design: Cindy Darling
Lighting Design: Kam Hobbs
Sound Design: Vance Okraszewski
Time - 9:41
The Company
"Iambus showcases the sunny “I love to dance” exuberance of all seven athletic members of Lehrer’s newly formed company. Set to taped music of Bobby McFerrin and Yo Yo Ma, the piece is rooted in the contrast between flow and sculpted multi-body constructions. The dancers happily invade each other’s space to connect, break apart, and recombine with daring speed and high-flying abandon. Their swift transfers of energy create both riveting visual design and breathtaking physical excitement."
Lynn Shapiro, Dance Magazine
Instinct
Instinct
2000
6:45
Dancers - 2
Music – Written by Clint Mansel, performed by Kronos Quartet
Lighting – Tabitha Rodman
Costumes – Jon Lehrer
“ Instinct has a clay-like feel, as if Lehrer shapes his war paint-covered dancers into mounds of conjoined earth awaiting an unknown enemy.”
- Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune
“Lehrer’s affinity for air-born antics doesn’t keep him from making stunning use of the floor and stationary movement in the duet Instinct. Animal energy seethes as the two predatory beings move from mutual dependence through the pain of emerging independence, to the breach that finally separates them. The power and dramatic tension of their bodies connecting and separating casts the space between them as a third partner.”
- Lynn Shapiro, Dance Magazine
“Full of primal fear and evolutionary tensions, the work was a true gymnastic thriller.”
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago SunTimes
La Fuite
La Fuite - The Escape
A mermaid only has one wish,
so should she give up her life of bliss,
within that deep wide ocean space,
where she swims with her heirs and grace.
-Jannet Corneto
2008
6:00
Dancers - 2
Music – “Gl-mur” by Amiina
Lighting – Kam Hobbs
Costumes – Cindy Darling
“We were once again amazed by Jennifer Huffman, this time in "La Fuite" (The Escape), where she danced with Kristen Stein. They were delicate and vulnerable, then strong and virile, yet androgynous in the portrayal of mermaids.
- Raphael Delgado - Ballet Center Blog
Loose Canon
Loose Canon
(2006)
Dancers - 5
Music: Palchelbel’s “Canon in D Major”, performed by Wynton Marsalis
Costume Design: Cindy Darling
Lighting Design: Kam Hobbs
Sound Design: Bruce Weber
"Wild near misses and unconventional couplings of women lifting men brought a change of pace the audience welcomed with raucous laughter and applause."
- Lynn Shapiro, Dance Magazine
“One of Lehrer's most astute pieces is "Loose Canon," which plays off Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major" as a cry for liberation in a vague asylum of the mind. Humorous without being hurtful, it expanded into a feast of body contortions and lush physical dexterity.”
- Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune
Morphic Slip
Morphic Slip
2009
8:30
Dancers - 2
Music - Aphex Twin
Lighting - Kam Hobbs
Costumes - Cindy Darling
“In Morphic Slip, dancers Jennifer Huffman and Theodore Krzykowski costumed in bobsled racer-looking suits, moved like reptiles along the stage floor before melding into more sculptural intertwinings of bodies.”
-Steve Sucato, Buffalo News
The Way Within
The Way Within
2007
5:30
Dancers - 1
Music – “Let Down” - Radiohead, Performed by Christopher O’Riley
Lighting- Kam Hobbs
Costumes – Cindy Darling
"We were given an exceptional opportunity to follow Dance Magazine's advice to watch Marideth Wanat perform in "The Way Within", a solo full of lyricism and contolled precision. Ms. Wanat was honored as one of the "25 to Watch" by Dance Magazine in 2009.”
- Raphael Delgado, Ballet Center Blog
Trois
Trois
2009
7:00
Dancers - 3
Music - Amiina
Lighting - Kam Hobbs
Costumes - Cindy Darling
"In Trois, also new this year, Lehrer explores the possibilities and permutations of three partnering dancers in a playful movement anagram. Dancers Roth, Naylor, and Kristen Stein launch into a revelry of body parts, in unison, opposition, and counterpoint, swinging, rocking, balancing, pushing and pulling each other to the cadence of Amiina’s score for guitar, drums, and bells. Their quietly exuberant interplay exemplifies the fluid technique and strong spinal core that anchor Lehrer’s movement impulses."
- Lynn Shapiro, Dance Writer and Chicago correspondent for Dance Magazine
“..a clever trio dance where the performers executed a series of inventive physical interactions and eye-engaging hand and arm movements to delightful effect.”
- Steve Sucato, Buffalo News
