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And Then They Talked Some More

January 17, 2013 by 7 Comments
Cameron (L) and Aoki turn creaturely. Photo: © Christ Cameron

Whoever said that dancers can’t talk well in public? These days, shutting up and just dancing is often not in the cards (there are some particulars that movement alone can’t reveal). This struck me when five of the seven performances that I managed to take in during four days of the annual event-crammed conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) involved speech. Thursday, 1/10, 6PM, Florence Gould Hall at the French Institute/Alliance Française: Gustavia. In this collaborative duet, the noted French … [Read more...]

01/17/13 3:37 PM | filed under: dance theater |

Men Dancing: Then and Now

July 25, 2012 by 4 Comments
Robert Swinston (front) and Germaul Barnes in The Men Dancers: From the Horse's Mouth (dress rehearsal). Photo: Taylor Crichton

Eighty years ago, when Ted Shawn assembled the all-male company that toured the U.S. with him during the 1930s, he aimed to eradicate the notion that dancing was for sissies (the polite, if bullying term for boys whose masculinity was in doubt). Almost all of those who joined Shawn’s Men Dancers were graduates of Springfield College’s Physical Education Department, and he toughened them further in those Depression years by having them hammer, hew, and dig to make the Massachusetts farm known as Jacob’s Pillow into their headquarters. … [Read more...]

07/25/12 8:03 AM | filed under: contemporary dance |

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