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AUDIENCE REVIEW: Thomas Hogan Presents: 'Goliath' a work-in-progress.

Performance Date:
01/31/26

Freeform Review:

 As an Eryc Taylor Dance New Choreographer Grant recipient, Thomas Hogan clearly has a rising choreographic presence, and his work-in-progress Goliath makes that evident. Presented at Dance Lab New York as a work in progress for ‘Drinks, Drafts, & Disco’ this past January, the piece explores themes of opposition, harmony, and trials of love, through a physically and emotionally dense duet performed by Lola Jenkins and Bryanna Strickland. 

Without wings on this stage, we were able to see both dancers standing ‘on their marks’, with unwavering eye contact from one side of the stage to the other; ready to dive in. After a foreboding count up from one to five, they charge the stage from both sides, running toward each other then forward all the way to our feet; swiftly closing the spatial and emotional distance in a single decisive gesture. This surge is followed with a wind of round, spiraling movements, as the initial confrontation softenes into something more cyclical and curious. Thomas’ choreography oscillates between propulsion and suspension, as if the dancers are repeatedly testing how far connection can extend before it strains. 

Trust becomes the undercurrent of the piece- trust in timing, in physical risk, in emotional exposure. Lola is particularly gifted in commanding our attention through virtuosic solo passages and a few calibrated stationary movements. Lola’s movement reads as deliberate yet fluid, purposeful without rigidity. Momentum carries them swiftly through space, but each transition looks fruitfully fulfilled rather than rushed. Strickland matches this intensity with a fierce sense of agency. Her negotiation of touch is particularly striking: at times allowing contact, at others resisting or redirecting it. This push and pull prevents the duet from settling into romantic cliché. Instead, it feels like an ongoing conversation- one in which consent, autonomy, and vulnerability are constantly renegotiated.

When the counting motif returns at the end of the piece, it does not simply repeat the opening. The dancers are now dancing closer-  to each other and to us. As the chorus climbs higher and higher, the effort to maintain unison becomes visible. By nine, the earlier harmony gives way to the dancer's palpable and complex connection: revealing that unison, love, and storytelling all demand endurance. As a work in progress, 'Goliath' already demonstrates Thomas’ ability to craft and reveal vibrant dynamics, as well as vital spatial designs. The piece leaves us not with resolution, but with a question: how long can two people remain aligned before individuality reasserts itself? In that uncertainty, Hogan finds something deeply human.

Author:
Sarah Ferguson

Photo Credit:
Christopher Duggan