Garth Fagan’s dances may be amorphous, but his dancers aren’t. They all have distinct personalities, but the company specialty is jumping. What you recalled most afterward was the time they spent in the air.
Five works were on Tuesday’s program at the Joyce, including one New York City premiere, but the whole evening felt like bits and pieces.
Fagan, who won a Tony for his work on “The Lion King,” isn’t one for structure. His movement is a stew of influences — it has the control of ballet, the gravity of modern dance. Although he’s from Jamaica, there isn’t as much Afro-Caribbean in the mix as you’d think, but his dancers look most striking when there is.
The new work, “Mudan 175/39,” was danced to Chinese music recorded by the Ying Quartet. The costumes were Asian-inspired but the movement was Fagan’s own loose style.
Like the rest of the program, this dance was made of vignettes that were pungent but sketchy. In a brief solo, Khama Kgari whirled onstage so fast that bits flew off his costume. A sextet built around a slow, striking duet for Norwood Pennewell and the languid Lindsay Benton was the best developed dance on the program.
Fagan’s 13 dancers are a striking lot, all colors and races, ranging in age from 20-something to their mid-50s. Pennewell’s been with the company more than 30 years, and he can still shoot across the stage in split leaps.
That — plus Vitolio Jeune’s jackknife kicks and Kaori Otari’s brief airborne flight (after Jeune tossed her) — were the best part of the show.