Launching a new dance company in New York City means joining a crowded and often competitive scene. But Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet attracted serious attention early on, and very quickly established a distinctively individual, cutting-edge identity. It has introduced New York dance audiences to contemporary European choreographers whose works had not previously had much opportunity to be seen on the city's stages.
Some initial skepticism was inevitable when Cedar Lake was founded in 2003 – not by a choreographer with an impassioned vision, but by a dance aficionado with very deep pockets: Nancy Laurie, an heir to the Wal-Mart supermarket chain fortune. She hoped to create new opportunities for dancers and choreographers. She was able to buy and renovate some prime Manhattan space, giving the company a stable home base (a much-desired rarity for most New York troupes) before it even had much of an identity.
But once Benoit-Swan Pouffer, a French former member of the Alvin Ailey company (who also choreographs) was named artistic director, he wasted no time importing and commissioning works by significant and often edgy choreographers he knew through his European contacts. With its ability to offer year-round salaries and comfortable working conditions, Cedar Lake attracted high-level dancers to its auditions and could be quite selective about its roster.
The company began drawing attention with the varied programs its presented in its home theater, and really came into its own artistically in 2007 when it brought Ohad Naharin in for an extended period of working with the dancers. He taught his Gaga technique and staged Decadance, a fiercely inventive compilation of excerpts and short works that made for a riveting evening, and showcased the dancers as bold, compelling performers.
Swan invited such choreographers as Crystal Pite, Nicolo Fonte, Luca Veggetti, Hofesh Schechter and Didi Veldman, nurturing a repertory unlike that of any other New York company. He also periodically created installations that shook up the traditional performance setting and took the company further into new territory.
Pouffer left Cedar Lake in 2013, and last April the company named Alexandra Damiani -- who had been working as its ballet master and rehearsal director since 2005 – its new artistic director. Damian's 15-year performing career included stints with les Ballets jazz de Montreal, Complexions and Donald Byrd. Cedar Lake also named Cristal Pite, the highly regarded Canadian choreographer who directs he own company, Kidd Pivot, as its new associate choreographer, committed to creating at least two works over the next three years.
Cedar Lake, which has expanded its touring schedule in recent years while performing annually in New York, makes its Australian debut with two programs at the Adelaide Festival, March 6 – 8. The mixed bill program features Pite's Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, a 2008 commissioned work in which five dancers rotate pair up in varied combinations in duets that subtly allude to narrative. That will show alongside Hofesh Schechter's Violet Kid, his second work for the company that sets 14 dancers in frenetic motion to his own percussive score. Jiri Kylian's 1998 Indigo Rose rounds out the program. A second program offers Orbo Novo, a fascinating full-evening 2009 work by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, in which the dancers clamber over, around and through a large movable latticework set.
In a phone interview Damiani stressed the continuity of her role, as she worked alongside Pouffer for eight years.“The idea is still very much to maintain a repertory company, keep the versatility of the dancers and showcase that by inviting choreographers who can provide a good insight of what's happening now in contemporary dance. Of course it's going to be drawn now by my aesthetic – what I think will be exciting for us to present. In that aspect, yes, it may be different. I'm encouraging the dancers to really participate in what Cedar Lake is about, and to develop other aspects of their artistry – such as choreography – to really nurture and nourish that in them.” The first work Damiani has commissioned for Cedar Lake is actually by an American choreographer based in Munich, Richard Siegal.
Speaking of the Adelaide Festival repertory, she said, “The best way to introduce the company to Australia was with pieces that are our trademark and are really strong. We have done them for quite a while; they're under our skin.”