José Limón (1908-1972) is known for being a pioneer of American Modern Dance as well as one of the greatest male dancers of the twentieth century. He fought hard for both his art form and the male body to be taken seriously on the concert stage. It is interesting then—and wonderful—that his company’s new program celebrates women. In Women’s Stories, opening on December 7 at New York Live Arts, the Limón Dance Company will perform three of the Company’s beloved works with all-female casts, as well as the world premiere of a reimagined classic from the female perspective.
Women’s Stories begins a new chapter of programming for the Company under Dante Puleio’s leadership. Puleio came on in March of 2020 as LDC’s sixth Artistic Director since its founding in 1946. The shutdown was challenging, of course, but it allowed him to think deeply about the Company and his role in it. “I was looking at Jose,” he told me, “and thinking about what he made, why he made it, how he made it. What it must have been like for a man of color to be making work like that in the 1950s and 60s.”
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Limón’s early works focused on his cultural heritage (he was born in Culiacán, Mexico and moved with his family to California when he was seven years old), and this is where Puleio focused, too, for his first few seasons as Artistic Director. But part of Puleio’s commitment to bringing Limón’s inclusive vision into the 21st century meant tackling the many social-political issues of the day, such as the current attack on women’s rights around the world. Limón was heavily influenced by the women in his life, so it wasn’t difficult to pull pieces from the repertory that celebrated them. When Puleio reached out to Israeli multidisciplinary artist Hilla Ben Ari about a possible new commission, everything fell into place. “The program just started to take on its own shape,” he said, “and........