Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM: Crystal Pite's Dark Matters / Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey / October 21-24, 2010 Name Crystal Pite and most of the dance enthusiasts I know still say "Who?" Maybe it's just America that doesn't know her. Yet. Pite's had a solid career as a dancer--in her native Canada and beyond, notably with William Forsythe, in Germany. Turned choreographer, she's created pieces for companies of some rank, among them Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballett Frankfurt, and Les Ballets Jazz de … [Read more...]

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake / New York City Center / October 13 - November 7, 2010 Once upon a time, as Matthew Bourne tells us, there was a crown prince, a supersensitive fellow with an emotionally frozen mother (see Freud). Naturally, he gets himself entrapped by a tiara-coveting floozy (see the tabloids' take on royalty), all the while fumbling at and fretting over the arid court duties he despises. His instincts for romance, sex, true love, freedom from constraint, even rendezvous with danger--every young man's birthright, wouldn't you … [Read more...]

By Martha Ullman West, guest contributor A recent National Endowment for the Arts survey shows that per capita attendance at the ballet in Oregon is fourth in the nation; in Washington State it is even higher. Could this be because we have decent-to-excellent ballet in a part of the country better known for the bounty of its rivers, the height of its trees, and the beauty of its scenery? Lord knows, ballet attendance in the United States as a whole is woefully small (at best four percent of the population, surveys show), and the three … [Read more...]

Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen / Museum of Modern Art, NYC / September 15, 2010 - March 14, 2011 Fall for Dance / City Center, NYC / September 28 - October 9, 2010 Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, NY / September 29 - October 9, 2010 Trisha Brown Dance Company / Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC / September 30 - October 3, 2010 Every now and then I steal time from dance, my regular beat, to indulge another passion: old things--vintage fashion, vintage films, vintage … [Read more...]