Juilliard Dances Repertory / Peter Jay Sharp Theater, NYC / March 25-29, 2009 Consider what I'll call the minor leagues of dance performance--the shows put on by the best schools and junior companies honing advanced-level students who are talented; absurdly young, considering the skills they've developed; thoroughly rehearsed and coached; still ingenuous enough to lay their lives on the line for these events so essential to their upcoming careers as full-fledged professionals. Of the groups in New York alone, think ABT II, Ailey II, Taylor 2 … [Read more...]

Paul Taylor Dance Company / New York City Center, New York City / February 25 - March 15, 2009 Michael Trusnovec in Taylor's Beloved Renegade. Photo by Wiley Price. As the ambitious season ran on, displaying choices from five decades of Taylor works, it became more and more obvious that this dance-maker's genius, his range, and his appetite for new territory are extraordinary, as is his ability to conjure up the most diverse moods and feelings from a dance vocabulary he has not found it necessary to revise or augment much over the years. The … [Read more...]

Savion Glover: SoLo in TiME / Joyce Theater, New York City / March 3-22, 2009 Savion Glover. Photo by NiNA. His feet are large--size 12 E or thereabouts--and, in their pedestrian mode, can look heavy and clumsy. Don't kid yourself; they're the fleetest human pedals imaginable. In quiet little soliloquies, the faster they get, the more crisply and delicately they strike the floor. When they slam down bluntly, full strength, you feel that the glass on the theater's exit signs, luminous in the dark auditorium, is in danger of shattering. The full … [Read more...]

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on March 6, 2009. Dancers from the Paul Taylor Dance Company, from left, Michael Trusnovec, Julie Tice, and Orion Duckstein take part in a performance of "Beloved Renegade" in New York on Nov. 21, 2008. Performances continue through March 15, 2009 at New York's City Center. Photographer: Wiley Price/Paul Taylor Dance Co. via Bloomberg News March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Illuminated by a narrow shaft of light, a man in white with pale coloring stands in a pure classical … [Read more...]