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Goodbye to the Green

November 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Peterson (foreground), Diamond, and Martel in Wooden

Since Laura Peterson began to show her choreography in New York around six years ago, she has become increasingly interested in transforming theater spaces through lighting, audience placement, and movement ideas. I’m thinking in particular of her 2007 I Love Dan Flavin, which I saw in the funky, cramped intimacy of the old Dixon Place, and Forever (2009), which utilized the columns and mirrored wall of Dance New Amsterdam. Between November 4 and 12, her new Wooden transformed HERE in more ambitious ways. And though, like all Peterson’s … [Read more...]

11/18/11 4:53 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

Going with the Flow

November 17, 2011 by 4 Comments
Lar Lubovitch's new Crisis Variations (Laura Rutledge aloft). Photo: Paula Lobo

In 2000, I saw Lar Lubovitch’s Men’s Stories: A Concerto in Ruins at the Angel Orensanz Center on the Lower East Side. The former synagogue with its dark wood paneling, high blue vault of a ceiling, and stained glass windows gave the nine superb dancers who rushed in and out of it a slightly mystical aura—as if they’d channeled the ghosts of rabbinical students maddened by their studies. The dance’s title refers to the fact that much of the music in Scott Marshall’s sound collage for the piece is Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 … [Read more...]

11/17/11 11:44 AM | filed under: contemporary dance |

November Potpourri

November 14, 2011 by 3 Comments
Kristi Boone and Gray Davis in Paul Taylor's Black Tuesday. Photo: Gene Schiavone

Seeing American Ballet Theatre during its too-brief season at City Center (nine works and eight performances in five days) could give spectators who devour the company’s spring shows at the Metropolitan Opera a new slant on the dancers. No tutus or tiaras on view, no see-me-ace-this displays of virtuosity, no hordes of elaborately costumed courtiers standing around watching some princess do what it takes to live happily ever after. And we get to see the splendid dancers in a more intimate setting. In fact, since most of the music was on … [Read more...]

11/14/11 11:28 AM | filed under: ballet |

The Sculpture Dances

November 9, 2011 by 1 Comment
Marnie Palomares and Alisdair Macinroe (original cast). Photo: Jeff Busby

The star of Gideon Obarzanek’s Connected isn’t someone whose autograph you’d ask for, nor would you wish he/she/it would friend you on Facebook. The most compelling presence onstage during Chunky Move’s early November season at the Joyce was a kinetic sculpture designed by California artist Reuben Margolin. Obarzanek, the director and choreographer of the Melbourne-based company, has always been interested in the interactions between dance, the visual arts, and media. His wonderful 2003 Tense Dave (co-choreographed with Lucy Guerin) … [Read more...]

11/9/11 9:54 AM | filed under: contemporary dance |

Pairs Made in Heaven: Reitz & Rudner, Burrows & Fargion

November 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Sarah Rudner (left) and Dana Reitz in Necessary Weather. Photo: Stephanie Berger

In 1994, we were all younger. Yet in the photo accompanying the review I wrote that year of Necessary Weather, the luminous collaboration by Dana Reitz, Sara Rudner, and Jennifer Tipton, Reitz and Rudner look almost exactly the way they do performing the piece at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in late October, 2011. They wear the same white pants and flowing, diaphanous white shirts. Reitz’s hair is shorter now. Of course, the women aren’t the same, nor am I. They’re not even the “same” women they were at the first revival of … [Read more...]

11/6/11 7:45 PM | filed under: postmodern views |

Sampling Dance, Bite by Bite

November 3, 2011 by 4 Comments
Lil Buck on point. Photo: Erinn Baiano

What’s not to love about Fall for Dance? For $10, you can sit in the pseudo-Moorish splendor of the refurbished City Center Theater and view one of the mixed bills running through November 6. Now’s the time to revisit companies you admire and discover ones you’ve never heard of. And don’t hurry home. Hang out for a while in the atrium running between 55th and 56th Streets that has been transformed into Lounge FFD—a place to drink, snack, and talk with others about what you’ve just seen. It helps if the weather isn’t … [Read more...]

11/3/11 4:17 PM | filed under: mixed bill |

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