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Shining Up the Past

March 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Maya Oguri in James Waring's Eccentric Beauty. Photo: Darial Sneed

New York Theatre Ballet’s name says more about it than its location.  Not often do you see “theatre” spelled that way these days (American Ballet Theatre is one of the exceptions), but once it was the norm. There’s something winningly and intelligently nostalgic about artistic director Diana Byer's choices of repertory for the small company that she founded in 1976. Byer has an unerring eye for which existing chamber works by great choreographers will suit her dancers and which young choreographers will contribute ballets that go … [Read more...]

03/29/13 4:08 PM | filed under: mixed bill |

Then Plus Now

November 1, 2012 by 3 Comments
Setterfield amid the winding procession of photos come to life. Photo: Paula Court

David Gordon is the King of Repetition, and I don’t want to hear any back talk. He manages dance material like someone holding an object up to direct sun, then to a candle flame, setting it against different backgrounds, turning it sideways. “Look at it now. Now look again.” He’s also a master re-arranger—juxtaposing past to present, rehearsal to performance, new to old, life to art. Gordon was one of the original members of Judson Dance Theater, so it’s fitting that his THE MATTER/2012 Art & Archive be shown as part of … [Read more...]

11/1/12 2:55 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

Does My Beginning Match Your Ending?

June 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Framed: the cast of Beginning of the End of the. . . (not in costume). Photo: Andre Eccles

Ever since the 1970s, David Gordon has been educating us into seeing that there are always two sides to everything (perhaps simultaneously), that repetition can reveal change, that words are devious game-players, and that you could be your own grandma. In his dance-theater works, where process and product often dance in lockstep, a performer may comment on what she/he—or another performer—is doing. To construct his fascinating, brain-tossing new venture, Beginning of the End of the. . . (at the Joyce Soho through June 30), Gordon has … [Read more...]

06/12/12 3:51 PM | filed under: dance theater |

“But if the cause be not good. . .”

October 9, 2011 by 2 Comments
King Henry's Troops. Photo: Paula Court

When David Gordon first presented his Dancing Henry Five in 2004, his reasons for choosing that particular Shakespeare play on which to wreak inspired havoc were obvious. In both England’s invasion of France in 1415 and the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq, the justification was flawed, and the evidence supporting it flimsy. Also, just as Prince Hal, a rowdy pub crawler, reformed with a vengeance as soon as the crown encircled his brow, George Bush the Younger, cast aside his carousing years at Yale and became a born-again … [Read more...]

10/9/11 2:14 PM | filed under: Postmodern New York |

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