The Nassau County Museum of Art Saturday hosted an outdoor dance performance entitled “Midsummer Magic: Zeus’ Garden” by the Great Neck-based non-profit Dance Visions dance company.
The performance, held as part of the museum’s new exhibit “Alex Katz: Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art,” was based on the choreography of early 20th century dancer Isadore Duncan, whose work is known for its influences in naturalism and Greek mythology.
Beth Jucovy, the Dance Visions’ director who trained under the tutelage of the late Duncan dancer Julia Levien and has taught courses in Duncan’s work throughout the United States, Europe and Israel, said Duncan’s choreography brought a “profound art back to dance” that “uses the torso as a source of movement and a belief that dancing came from the soul.”
“[Duncan’s legacy] is a major part of who I am and my work, and the more natural outdoor setting is the perfect environment for this kind of dance,” Jucovy said.
Jucovy, who was a dance educator in the New York City public school system from 1997-2005 and founded the Great Neck studio Children Dancing in 1988, said her dancers rehearsed “Midsummer Magic” at All Saints Church in the Village of Great Neck and at a rented space in Queens, which served as a convenient meeting location for her dancers, who live primarily in the Long Island and New York City areas.
“Midsummer Magic” was narrated by Great Neck resident and actress Shirley Romaine, who has worked with Dance Visions for the last 15 years.
Romaine, who is the host and producer of the Cablevision series “Artscene on Long Island,” a “member at large” for the Great Neck Arts Center’s board of directors and a co-chair of the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, said “Midsummer Magic” serves as a story of life and love, scored with Duncan’s dances.
“I see it as my job to be the connective tissue between each of the dancers and make it accessible to the audience, and we’re in the lap of nature, so it’s great,” Romaine said.
