Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

Photo by Matthew Murphy ©2025  Photo by Matthew Murphy

Alvin Ailey’s Citigroup Theatre hosts the third New York season of Avi Scher & Dancers, a company dedicated to presenting new works by choreographer Avichai Scher in “intimate venues at affordable ticket prices,” featuring guest artists from premier ballet companies. This production stars ABT Principal Herman Cornejo and Boston Ballet Principal Misa Kuranaga as well as Joffrey Ballet’s Derrick Agnoletti and Laura Feig and former ABT soloist Carlos Lopez. The company is rounded out by ABT core dancers Sterling Baca, Zhong-Jing Fang, and Sean Stewart and by Kelsey Coventry, Madeline Deavenport, Victoria North, and Nancy Richer.

Avi Scher & Dancers’ third season includes selections from two Scher dances “Touch” and “Mystery in the Wind” and three world premiers: “The Gift,” a pas de duex of a more “modern relationship” to music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the nine-dancer piece “Dwindle,” and “Phased,” a pas de deux specifically choreographed for Misa Kuranaga and Herman Cornejo with original guitar music by Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Photo by Matthew Murphy ©2025  Photo by Matthew Murphy

The challenge of these pieces is that they present a contemporary dance aesthetic and principles while utilizing a strictly ballet vocabulary. This has the effect of making everything very exquisite, but also gives the performance an emotional hurdle to overcome. Some intimacy is lost, and yet the work is stunning, the dancing flawless, and the audience is enraptured!

The program opens with the excerpts from two Scher dances circa 2010. First “Touch” is performed by the stunning duo Victoria North and Derrick Agnoletti to the music of Alles Wie Gross. This pas de duex has beautiful shapes and a combination of sharp and flowing movement, but the spacing on stage makes it visually hard for the audience to draw the relationship between the two dancers. This piece has no costume designer listed, and it shows. The two dancers are seemingly in rehearsal attire which they were either directed to mismatch or were given no direction at all. Either way the result is an awkward, uncoordinated look for the piece. In contrast, “Mystery in the Wind” follows with a perfectly coordinated set of dresses by David Quinn for trio Kelsey Coventry, Madeline Deavenport, and Nancy Richer. The work begins in the vein of a sweet pastoral vignette but then gradually amps up to a vivacious rustic dance. With transverse shaping and a focus on distill space, “Mystery in the Wind” represents mastery of both precision and presentation, with the three performers shining both as a group and in solos.

From there the show graduates into the Scher premier works that anchor the evening. “The Gift” leads off, a surprisingly theatrical piece using props and more pedestrian costumes to support the narrative. “The Gift” was a crowd favorite on Friday, perhaps because of its accessibility, but also thanks to effortless partnering by Laura Geig and Derrick Agnoletti and the emotion of their performance. “The Gift is a touching piece with a truly endearing final moment.

“Phased” is heralded by Nate Brown’s live guitar playing—original music composed for the dance by Heitor Villa-Lobos. “Phased” was choreographed specifically for celebrated duo Misa Kuranaga and Herman Cornejo in their New York partnering debut, and it’s obvious why. The pair shimmer in this grandiose, romantic melodrama with a Spanish flare. Kuranaga and Cornejo form the most intimate relationship on stage, and the piece takes advantage of their chemistry with beautiful complimenting body work. “Phased” also has the best costumes—simple yet expertly coordinated and actualized by designer Janie Taylor and constructor Ursula Verduzco.

The grandest piece of all closes the night. “Dwindle” features 9 dancers in breathtaking formations, with music by Alarm Will Sound and Brooklyn Rider, and very sophisticated costumes by Reid Bartelme. Like other works by Scher, “Dwindle” grows from a more formal start to looser, more dramatic movement. In this instance, the dancing starts in almost courtly fashion, moves into more exotic movement and music, and eventually begins to pull texture reminiscent of the Motown/60s sensibility. “Dwindle” includes a harem of sensual, powerful women as well as a fantastic duet for two men—intricate and unexpected. It’s superb.

Over all this is a night of beautiful dancing and exciting new works by accomplished Avi Scher. For more information about this and future performances, visit www.avischer.com.

Avi Scher & Dancers runs at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theatre, 405 W. 55^th Street at 9^th Avenue, through April 9^th. Tonight’s performance is at 8 PM. Tickets are $29 or $16 for students and can be purchased at www.smarttix.com or by calling 212-848-4444.