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From Tunis to Ithaca

May 15, 2013 by 1 Comment
Inverting the world. Photo: Bénédikte Longechal

Jonah Bokaer performs his The Ulysses Syndrome with his father, Tsvi Bokaer, May 9 and 10, during the French Institute's World Nomads Festival. Ithaca is the island in the Ionian sea that Odysseus (aka Ulysses) left when he armed himself for the Trojan War, and it’s the place he returned to after ten postwar years of wandering. Ithaca, New York, is the city where Tsvi Bokaer finally settled after roaming from his native Tunis to other Mediterranean cities, to France, and to California, where he became a screenwriter. In Ithaca, he … [Read more...]

05/15/13 10:17 PM | filed under: postmodern views |

All American

May 11, 2013 by 7 Comments
Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in Christopher Wheeldon's A Place for Us. Photo: Paul Kolnik

New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center, April 30 through June 9 In the Spring of 1988, the New York City Ballet put on an American Music Festival. George Balanchine had been dead for five years, and the two Ballet Masters in Chief, Peter Martins and Jerome Robbins, commissioned enough new ballets to keep dancers, guest choreographers, and resident choreographers rushing in and out of the company’s studios, gnawing on health bars. Was this Eliot Feld’s rehearsal? No, it was Bart Cook’s. Then when was Martins scheduled? Not too many … [Read more...]

05/11/13 2:38 PM | filed under: ballet |

A Change in the Wind

May 7, 2013 by 1 Comment
Brandin Steffensen, cross-dressed. Photo: Julie Lemberger

Tamar Rogoff’s Summer’s Different in La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart’s Theater, April 24 through May 12 A family’s summer day on the beach, what could be finer?  Of course, someone might get  sunburned, someone might drop her hot dog in the sand, someone might swim out a little too far. There could be bickering. Tears saltier than usual could be shed. But still. . .a cloudless sky, blue waves. That’s the kind of day it seems to be in Tamar Rogoff’s startling new work, Summer’s Different. When all its five characters are posed … [Read more...]

05/7/13 8:43 PM | filed under: dance theater |

Awaken to Life!

May 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Joshua Green in Like Lazarus did (LLD 4/30). Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Stephen Petronio Company at the Joyce Theater, April 30 through May 5, 2013 Over a hundred black-clad members of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City form a V around the corner of the Joyce Theater—some on 19th Street, some on 8th Avenue; over a hundred pairs of eyes focus on composer Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott), who, shielded by a parasol, is playing guitar alongside trumpeter C.J. Camerieri and violinist Rob Moose. “Come out!” sing the kids in sweet harmony to a burgeoning crowd of spectators—most of whom have come to the … [Read more...]

05/5/13 11:07 AM | filed under: contemporary dance |

Journeying Along Interior Trails

April 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Souleymane Badolo in his Barack. Photo: Ian Douglas

Souleyman Badolo and Cynthia Oliver at New York Live Arts, April 25 through 27 At one point in Suleymane Badolo’s new solo, Barack, on the opening night of his season at New York Live Arts, Badolo dances with his back to the audience, clapping his hands together vigorously; when he stops, from the audience comes a small-voiced echo of his action (maybe two pairs of hands clapping) that extends the sound for a few seconds more. When Badolo turns and begins backing up in a curving path, he directs a sweet grin in the direction of the … [Read more...]

04/30/13 4:17 PM | filed under: postmodern views |

Both Sides Now

April 25, 2013 by 2 Comments
Marilyn Maywald on the table; Jon Kinzel behind her. Photo: Anjola Toro

Vicky Shick’s Everything You See. Presented by Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, April 18 through 20. Imagine a richly busy world in which everyone is mostly at peace with everyone else, and all are serious about their work. Then think about that work. It’s unusual. The inhabitants swing their bodies and limbs into big, sweeping movements, but their patterns also incorporate small, even mundane gestures, such as pulling on one’s nose or planting a kiss on someone else in passing. Sometimes, people share a task with … [Read more...]

04/25/13 2:45 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

Life Eats On

April 22, 2013 by 2 Comments
Liony Garcia dines on Melissa Toogood's hair. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Baryshnikov Arts Center, April 18 and 19, 2013 Anyone who has ever felt fragile or off balance might be heartened by Rosie Herrera’s Dining Alone. Here’s one of many memorable passages. A woman (Ivonne Batanero) holds a stack of white dinner plates; a man (Liony Garcia), crouching beside her, takes the plates, one by one, from the pile and places them on the floor to create a diagonal trail for her to walk on. She never looks down; he gauges where her foot is going to need the next plate. A pianist plays … [Read more...]

04/22/13 6:07 PM | filed under: postmodern views |

Wild at Heart, Sometimes

April 21, 2013 by 3 Comments
Lochary wants YOU! Or not. Photo: Christopher Duggan

Summation Dance, BAM Fishman Space, April 11 through 13. What’s not to love?  That is, if you—like me—are easily entranced by the combination of formal purity and weirdness. When the lights come on in the black box of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Fishman Space to signal the beginning of Sumi Clements’s Shift, three women stand, separated from each other and staring through us. It’s how they stand that’s interesting. They’re slanted to the side, arms pinned to their flanks, with one foot crossed behind the other and … [Read more...]

04/21/13 3:23 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

For Eyes and Ears

April 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Rita Donohue and Mikhail Baryshnikov (foreground) and (L to R) Aaron Loux, Dallas McMurray, Maile Okamura, and (half hidden) Amber Star Merkens. Photo: Stephanie Berger

Mark Morris Dance Group. James and Martha Duffy Performance Space, Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn, New York. April 3 through 14. You can’t predict much about a dance by Mark Morris. There’s no doubt that he responds to music and —with love and respect—choreographs that response into what he hears. He acknowledges with great sensitivity a composer’s tempi and structures and atmosphere, but you never know what else the sounds will trigger. Antonin Dvorák’s Bagatelles for two violins, cello, and harmonium, Op. 47 (1878) … [Read more...]

04/7/13 7:13 PM | filed under: contemporary dance |

No Words

April 1, 2013 by 1 Comment
LaMichael Leonard, Jr. (foreground); at back, Joseph Poulson carrying ?. Photo: Paul B. Goode

Bill T. Jones is a taking a holiday from the spoken word. The last time he did that may have been in 1992. Unlike his Serenade/The Proposition (2008), Fondly Do We Hope...Fervently Do We Pray (2009), and Story/Time (2011), none of those on view during the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s season at the Joyce Theater (March 26 through April 7) makes use of text. None of them presents a view of current political or social injustices. All but one are set to the works of major dead composers that Jones reveres, and Beethoven figures … [Read more...]

04/1/13 8:22 PM | filed under: contemporary dance |
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