PRESS
Latest Interview: "What defines a stage these days? While dance artists are figuring that out, Gabrielle Lamb's richly detailed movement has found a perfect home on a 5x8-foot Persian rug." (September 2020)
Latest Interview: On Air Spotlight with Gabrielle Lamb (October 2023)
"Having worked with choreographer Gabrielle Lamb two years in a row in the ABT Incubator program, American Ballet Theatre corps member Zimmi Coker jumped at the chance to be part of Lamb's outdoor Carpet Series" (March 2021)
"There's something about the rug that just invites people to watch. New York dancer performs on persian carpet in new outdoor series..." (August 2020)
"So You Got a Commission. Here's How to Make the Time Count" (October 2021)
“I think of choreography like building, like if you build a stone wall. You have a pile of rocks, and you have to pick out the ones that fit well together and put together a puzzle.”. (July 2020)
Lamb’s choreography brims with skidding, slippery phrases that stroke and somersault across the floor, often in profile. Occasional motifs crystallize the stream into gem-like images. (February 2020)
All About Process: Inside Rehearsals for ABT Incubator" (Nov 2018)
"I am interested in the ways that individuals relate to collectives, so themes of belonging, separation and connection are through-lines in my work. (March 2019)
Lacunae, set to modern folk by the Estonian singer Maarja Nuut, felt organic and intimate. This was full-body dancing, not in an aggressive sense but in that every limb and finger and eyelash of every dancer was engaged in expression. A gentleness suffused the urgent gesturing and weighted floor work ...(June 2018)
"How To Incubate: a Round Table with ABT's Newest Choreographers:. (December 2018)
"From Classical to Contemporary, Choreographer Gabrielle Lamb Finds Her Voice. (May 2018)
The commissions keep coming for Gabrielle Lamb, a dancer of stunning clarity who illuminates the smallest details—qualities she brings to the dances she makes, too.
Generous, imaginatively breaking rules....at no point is it predictable....It’s a nutty piece, but the mind does not wander.
The program’s happiest note came with Gabrielle Lamb’s six-minute “Quizas, Quizas, Quizas” (Canada, 2007), a charming piece of whimsy that combined animation with clips of Ginger Rogers (sometimes with Fred Astaire) and art photographs (by Man Ray or of Josephine Baker and others) all bumping....the whole film had the constant flow of movement and dream-logic of good cartoons. It also had the quality of play that often characterizes good or great art.
The movement style of the choreographer Gabrielle Lamb is eccentric, and her penchant for extreme segmentation of the body is sometimes playful, but not always. To the Harkness Dance Festival, she brings Bewilderness, inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell. The articulated body parts interlock into assembly lines, house-of-cards structures, and totem poles—curious forms of interpersonal connection in a dark world.
...most winningly, a dance for seven, Bewilderness, inspired by the historian and activist Rebecca Solnit ...Ending with a drily witty cartoon, the dancers help each other one by one out of physical knots. Each work on the program required precision and calm, torso dexterity, and often an air of wonder.
This understated elegance of form woven throughout all of Lamb’s work conveyed incredible degrees of feeling–the direct result of the strength of her choreographic development and the dancers commitment to her movement. Lamb’s subtle and thoughtful use of the theme and variations model was constantly evolving and kept leading the audience back to her commentary on the human condition.
"Gabrielle Lamb Choreographs Orange Inspired by Trevor Paglen", Interview by Katy Donaghue.
Bewilderness suggests rather than states. Lamb’s movement invention is captivating and engagingly tactile; her use of space and the architecture she crafts deserve more in-depth analysis than is allowed by a single viewing
What I liked most about this piece is its lack of physical partnering; instead the dancers relied on simple human contact to produce authentic connections with one another. It was a very trippy ride indeed and a complementary pairing of artistic minds.
(see page 3)
Then came Gabrielle Lamb's I Am A Woman: Moult, a brilliant investigation into anatomy, fashion, and womanhood. First, it was refreshing to see a female name on the program. Then, it was exciting to know that the woman behind the name was a force to be reckoned with, her techique new and compelling.
"Women to Watch: Three Rising Choreographers You Should Know", featuring Gabrielle Lamb, Emery LeCrone and Gemma Bond.
--- POINTE Magazine
The jewel of the evening was "Tessellations", by Gabrielle Lamb. The music by the Amestoy Trio and Cat Power was bubbly and danceable, fun for the audience, as it must have been for the dancers. The nine dancers were at their best doing this contemporary work, danced in socks. They moved through the engaging choreography with understanding and confidence.
--- Broadway World
"Glas" is my kind of choreography, one that deluges its audience with abundant information which, when added together, gives a satisfyingly wholistic montage constructed out of many tiny puzzle pieces.... The work was never just about beauty. It was about balance and integrity of the art form too.
I voted for the piece I'd most like to see again: Gabrielle Lamb's "Dovetail".... To plucky, circusy music, the ensemble of nine sustained a viscous quality..."Dovetail" had complexity, loveliness, humanity, and a novel point of view.
--- Austin Chronicle
"A Conversation with Freelance Choreographer Gabrielle Lamb" by Rachel Rizzuto
Especially brilliant...stunningly visual...Lamb's use of Philip Glass was excellent...the glitchy, eerie soundtrack was perfect bedding for [her] exploration of connect and disconnect within families.
Les danseurs évoquent à la fois des poupées de chiffon, par leurs mouvements exécutés avec une extrême souplesse, une mollesse presque désarticulées, et les fils de la trame. Les figures chorégraphiques évoquent le tissage par l’entrecroisement des fils, la révélation progressive des couleurs et des formes.
Lamb, who also has choreographed for Ballet Memphis previously, has created something that is, by turns, witty, creepy, heartbreaking and beautiful as the dancers go through all manner of contortions to appear to be who they think they should be.
Gabrielle Lamb's captivating "Manifold" closed the evening, ranging from aching, yearning moments to enigmatically playful bits...Lamb created an emotional tug by placing some dancers in interactive ensemble bits, with one or two dancers isolated, outside of the group. That constantly shifting, sometimes divided focus, which ran like a thread through the piece, proved thoroughly engrossing.
“Manifold,” choreographed by Gabrielle Lamb, is a brilliant piece with men and women in a continuous swirl of connecting and detaching. The beauty of the flow is how one dancer’s movement prompts something similar yet distinct from the next. What happens is nearly predictable but almost random, and thoroughly fascinating to watch unfold.
--- Memphis Commercial Appeal
Richly textured...In this piece [HappenStance]...there’s a wide-eyed sense of invention and discovery in almost every gesture and detail...There’s a butterfly-flutter-to-tsunami sense of cause-and-effect in these very personal musings.
Choreographer Gabrielle Lamb’s equally original HappenStance shared a similar concern: How does art happen? Lamb allows for luck...In a deeply affecting passage, the men swirled, curled and collided at high speed to a slow rendition of “My Favorite Things” by the female jazz vocalist Youn Sun Nah.
Despite the grim foreboding of Lamb’s piece [Stations of Mercury}, hers is the most playful of the three. I found myself laughing throughout the entire piece--it is silly in a good way.
Compelling...dreamy...mysterious.
HeedfulNeedful by Gabrielle Lamb, a work for six dancers, seemed very much about story—and a personal one at that...Each dancer committed to the choreography with the precision of an elocutionist, every movement enunciated perfectly and laden with meaning.
