The Jersey City Independent"

As the lights dimmed and the attendees of Nimbus Dance Works’ Fifth Anniversary Gala took their seats, I couldn’t help but think to myself: “Pinch me; I’m in Jersey City.” The locale may not be home to a designated performing arts center or recital hall, but that doesn’t stop the members of Nimbus Dance from producing top-tier performances of contemporary choreography citywide.

According to Samuel Pott, Nimbus’ founder and current artistic director, the company was created in 2005 to “foster community engagement [and bring] the hi-concert directly to the community,” as well as to provide dancers and choreographers the opportunity to bring their creative visions to life. For the opening performance of their fifth season on June 11, company members crossed artistic boundaries, collaborating with the New Amsterdam Singers (a sixty-person choir directed by Clara Longstreth), the Jersey City-based Con Vivo ensemble, and guest choreographer Randy James of Rutgers University.

As the dancers began the opening movements of “Travelers,” the only audible sounds were their faint breathing and the soft squeaking of the temporary dance floor. The stage was illuminated by a warm glow as the pair of dancers wandered back and forth, engaging in an exploratory journey as the musicians harmonized a lilting melody. This piece was a world premiere choreographed by company member Jean Paul Jr., and though I don’t believe it was specifically conceived for Grace Church, the religious architecture of the space added dimension to the performance. It was as if the dancers were playing out a medieval tale in which desperate wanders and lost travelers found refuge in the warmth of a monastery, or in the eves of a cathedral.

“Puzzle Pieces,” the most visually compelling dance in the show, took place under the glare of red floor spotlights. The dancers pulled and stretched their costumes — made from red netting — to create contorted shapes strangely reminiscent of lopsided parallelograms. They themselves became oddly formed puzzle pieces, sometimes dancing in unison, other times exploring shapes on their own in explosive bursts. As the male dancers took the stage the postures became quicker, emphasizing the spaces between the dancers and the ways in which they could come together in a tumultuous and ever-changing flurry of form.

These geometric and sometimes jolting movements were in sharp contrast to the fluttering, circular elements of “Moth,” choreographed by Randy James. The dancers flapped in and out of the dappled circles of light that illuminated parts of the stage. They flew towards and away from one another, to and from the light, along the edges of the mat. “Moth” — as opposed to the other pieces performed that night — was not a piece that highlighted the relationships between dancers, rather the erratic movements inspired by shared instinct. When the dancers did pair off it was as if they had themselves become each other’s light source, providing the glue needed to hold the couple together until a more powerful glow lured one away.

“Six Chansons,” a series of six short pieces performed with the New Amsterdam Singers, took us back to the medieval. The dancers performed in costumes that resembled sackcloth, evoking the themes of poverty, penitence (and sometimes hopelessness) present in the song lyrics. The fact the performance took place in a church again seemed eerily relevant as the words of the 15th century writer Charles d’Orleans echoed through the building.

At the end of the night the dancers mingled with the crowd, relaxing after a successful first show and trying not to think too much about the days to come.

Aside from engaging local audiences with these dance performances, Nimbus focuses on community development though “JC Grooves,” a program designed to teach middle schoolers the joy and dedication involved in being a dancer. Now in its second year, the program invites 25 students to train and dance with the company in a piece to be performed for 2000 of their school-aged peers. The process was so successful that Nimbus will run a summer installment for high school students, in conjunction with the Jersey City Board of Education.

Looking towards the future, Samuel Pott would like to see Nimbus find a place of its own in order to better effectuate its public mission. “Grace Church is a wonderful performance space,” he says, “but I would like to find a permanent home, especially for studios and workshops.”

For all its professional merit, Nimbus Dance remains fundamentally a community-centered company. “The most important thing is people getting out and experiencing,” Potts notes. Nimbus, please keep helping us do just that.