Rachel Howard December 30, 2020Updated: December 31, 2020, 7:28 am
Corey Brady and Norma Fong perform in the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s “Breathing at the Boundaries.” Photo: Courtesy Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
During the pandemic, we have seen no shortage of socially distanced dance on screen, some of it intimate and slapdash, some of it panoramic and refined and all of it, for its sheer collective persistence, heartening. But the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s “Breathing at the Boundaries” is the first dance work this year I’ve encountered that both responds to this moment and transcends it.
The hour-long performance, which had its world premiere streamed Tuesday, Dec. 29, and is available to stream for free through Jan. 6, is an astonishingly impressive achievement. On reflection, it should have been obvious that Jenkins would emerge as the choreographer uniquely positioned to make work of such fineness in this moment. Since establishing