2007
Click on the links below to read Ilona Wall's four part installation following ad hoc Ballet up to it's premiere of The Lucy Poems:
1 : Building a Niche : The Birth of ad hoc Ballet
2 : ad hoc Ballet : Trying for Truth
3 : ad hoc Ballet : The Road to an Opening
4 : ad hoc Ballet : The Inaugural Season
"evokes a disturbing world of mental illness" with "it's powerful atmosphere and images of madness."
- Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times
"expressive and quirky, vaguely disturbed gestures and movements, using the inherently unnatural but elegant quality of classic ballet as a platform for naturalistic, sometimes bird-like movement. At the same time, there is quite a bit of unballetic contact, with collisions, slaps and catches."
- Quinn Batson, offoffoff.com
"(Lohse) has an uncanny ability to go from violent to soft movement instantly, even within the same motion."
- Quinn Batson, offoffoff.com
"there were moments of peace, and even within the contortions, there was a strange beauty to the movement"
- Tonya Plank, tonyaplank.com
"Even moments of unison became three voices of one mind when performed by Brandt, Brown, and Thompson. Brandt was the malicious, aggressive and controlling voice. Brown brought a softness and vulnerability to the movement, and Thompson moved with a bright-eyed competence and curiosity that set her apart."
- Ilona Wall, exploredance.com
"Best reasons to be there... Elias, Lohse's articulate, searing solo inspired by her work with a mentally ill nursing home resident...".
- Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Village Voice
"Deborah Lohse also returns to where she began her ELIAS - sitting huddled in a pool of light. Shaven-headed, long limbed, elastic, and fascinating, Lohse conveys the vagaries of a troubled mind by altering the speed and scale of the curious shapes she pulls her body into."
- Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
"The second half of the program begins with a powerful solo choreographed and performed by Deborah Lohse. In Elias, the dancer portrays a character afflicted by the compulsion to rock back and forth or to clench her hand. The dance's pathos, however, derives from moments of apparent freedom, when Lohse peers at us with normal, human curiosity or suspicion, or adopts a stance of proud self-possession before tragically falling prey again to her malady".
- Robert Johnson, The Star-Ledger
"These new and emerging dancemakers are a passionate and driven group of artists who are bringing a full diversity of style, craft and innovation to the theater. We are inspired by what we witnessed at DTW as well as at the exquisite Synod House at St. John the Divine. We can testify that dance in NYC is totally percolating with great new talent, fierce and raw energy and many poignant new voices like ...Deborah Lohse... who we are elated about and looking to see what they will do next".
- Robin Staff, Andrea Sholler, and Tamara Greenfield, directors of Dancenow/NYC Festival
"Deborah Lohse and Cornelius Brown were the enjoyably mismatched partners in Enveloped, a duet for a child of the earth and a piquant ballerina who seemed to have lost her way but found her man, at least for the moment".
- Jennifer Dunning, New York Times
"The program commenced with Enveloped, choreographed by Deborah Lohse, a pas de deux that utilized both athleticism and lyricism".
- Jennie Schulman, Backstage
"This emotionally driven duet was fascinating, with Ms. Lohse en pointe and Mr. Brown barefoot. This was obviously about the joy and angst of a relationship, with choreography that uses rapid walking to signify determination and decisions. The partnered lifts were elegant and professional. Ms. Lohse, the dancer, was also the versatile choreographer".
- exploredance.com
"Deborah Lohse opened the evening with Enveloped, a well-performed fear-of-involvement duet, for which she found some telling gestures, dynamic variation, and a witty ending".
- The Arts Cure
"Deborah Lohse No Excuses - tragicomedy at its pinnacle, danced by a swan in toe shoes in front of family ugly duckling photos from Hell".
- Quinn Batson, Offoffoff.com
"Tall Lohse has a rubber face and large, expressive eyes (Carol Burnett comes to mind), but she uses these with restraint and excellent timing".
- Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice