What the critics say

“Chris Elam’s dances burst with distinctiveness … he is a talent, no doubt about it… Mr. Elam is well on his way to establishing himself as an important voice in downtown dance.”
John Rockwell, New York Times

“Christopher Elam’s Misnomer Dance Theater hit town with a force I haven’t seen since the early days of Mark Morris.
Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice

“Bizarre and comical, Chris Elam’s Misnomer Dance Theater blurs the line between humans behaving weirdly and animals at play.”
Emily Macel, Dance Magazine

“Chris Elam has fashioned a distinctive, engagingly bizarre choreographic style…his skill and clarity of vision delight the soul.”
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

“A true original, Mr. Elam is one of the most individualistic of modern dance voices today.”
Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

“Absurd and poignant… wonderfully strange and unpredictable choreography.”
Brian Seibert, The New Yorker

“Elam’s juicy, elastic tumbling looks simultaneously innocent and darkly symbolic. His mythic and playful dances suggest something that might have happened at the dawn of the world.”
Chris Dohse, Dance Magazine

“If the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, don’t expect Elam to walk it.[Elam’s work] makes you chuckle and recoil at the same time.”
Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Dance Writer

“Elam, who is more impossibly elongated than an El Greco Christ, frequently looks like a praying mantis or a goofy Hanuman.”
Chris Dohse, The Dance Insider

“Only partially resolves into dancing humans.”
Marcia Siegel, The Boston Phoenix

“Fusion doesn’t begin to describe what’s going on here; Elam is annealing his influences, creating a taut, intense movement language quite remote from the ‘released’ style so common downtown.”
Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice

“Chris Elam is as flexible as a pretzel.”
Gus Solomons, The Dance Insider

“Perhaps throwing his viewers for a loop each time they think they can figure it all out is part of Chris Elam’s style.”
Marianne Camarda, Brooklyn Daily Eagle