Fadi J Khoury, Artistic Director, choreographer, and principal dancer of FJK presented Works in Progress at the 92nd Street Y on Tuesday, November 4th, highlighting not only his artistic achievements but the creative process as an in-the-moment experience that can be preserved and survive if shared honestly by artists and audience. For people like me, who care about dance and what the art has to offer to society, Khoury strives to provide a connection between the every day and the presented production. What is at its core is the amalgamation of all the beauty and intimacy of the human body and human experience not limited to a single culture.
Founded in 2014 by Khoury following a successful collaborative experience with Sevin Ceviker, FJK Dance is a New York City-based contemporary dance company that blends culturally and aesthetically distinguished dance genres to create a truly unique movement vocabulary. Khoury was born to an Arab family in Baghdad, Iraq, where his father also had a career in dance. Having studied in Beirut and having toured the Middle East and North Africa with the Caracalla Dance Theater, Khoury's choreography is influenced by Middle Eastern music and dance. In a Q and A session that followed the performance, he was asked how he uses different dance forms to create his works, and he explained that he studies the body and its physicality in tandem with the music and sees the pace as a cultural study. The many cultures and genres that inform him blend beautifully the aspects of that which is human and true.
The 92nd Street Y housed an excellent performance from a company that steers clear of all adornments and formalities that may take away from or distract a viewer from the organic and genuine experience Khoury aims to provide. Most predominately noticed in his choreography are the styles of ballet and ballroom. However, Khoury has become known for shedding the layers of luster and glitz to focus on the quality of movement, possibilities of the body, and causal human experiences.
In "Tango Unframed" we see how Argentinean tango is both celebrated and reconstructed to imbue classical ballet and modern movement vocabulary into the traditional form. Khoury presents a process, an unframing of the tango tradition to be more inclusive and to liberate the movement. The partners are not bound to each other, stuck in the tight embrace, but rather expand the movement possibilities to find freedom in partnering. Likewise, FJK music director Ron Jackson has delved into this process to the same effect. The existing tango music is jump started with the blending of contemporary and electronic music, which makes for an exciting experience of intensified tango.
"Arabesque" is quite ethereal at its start with movements and music rooted in Middle Eastern culture. The body snakes and arches upward at times and downward at others with a sense of reverence. Veneration gradually turns to celebration as the cross between Middle Eastern dance and ballet vocabulary and style builds upon itself. Structural choices are nicely made and are fascinating to the eye as dancers break in and out of unison, which is extremely tight. What may be most appreciated in this work, is how harmonious the elements are. We know that the work is constructed by a meshing of different influences. What we experience is the ever smooth blend of all influences to create, both in sight and sound, a truly unique composition.
