• Home
  • About
    • Foot in Mouth
    • Apollinaire Scherr
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Foot in Mouth

Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance

Apollinaire: GO

October 19, 2006 by Apollinaire Scherr Leave a Comment

On the subject of renewed classics: if you live in the New York area, go see Sarah Michelson’s tour de force “Dogs,” at the BAM Harvey Theater through Saturday only.
It’s as if Michelson, with key help from visual designer and principle dancer Parker Lutz, scooped up all the women-birds and women sphinxes–the Firebirds and Cleopatras– in history and ballet and found a way to reimagine them so they didn’t seem hokey or threadbare, as they often do when choreographers return to them, but renewed in their mysteries.
I don’t want to give the experience away–the whirl and swirl and statuesque glow of the dancing, the way the stunning design (which just keeps stunning, moment to moment) makes the Harvey stage seem both enormous and thoroughly sealed. This gift is best surprised by. In mood the closest approximation I can think of is Balanchine’s “Divertimento from ‘La Baiser de La Fee’ “: that eerie sadness.
Also, if you go, let me know what you make of the odd coda. It feels allegorical to me. I won’t post responses until “Dogs'” run is up.

Filed Under: main

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Apollinaire Scherr

is the New York-based dance critic for the Financial Times. She has written regularly for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Newsday, as well as SF Weekly and the East Bay Express, in the Bay Area. She has contributed to... Read More…

Foot in Mouth

This blog's concern is the tricky business of recognizing dance's peculiar language and history … [Read More...]

Archives

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in