December 27, 2005
Big Apple Circus
Two beautiful solo aerialists soar high overhead like fearless angels--a young woman on a flying trapeze, twisting her pulchritudinous body into amazing configurations, and a daring young man masquerading convincingly as Peter Pan. Village Voice 11/14/05
Posted by ttobias at 10:42 PM
Cisne Negro Dance Company
Vasco Wellencamp's Canticos Misticos (to blaringly miked excerpts from Handel's Messiah) contains several semi-abstract images that go right to the heart of the matter, many a pretty moment that confuses sentiment with deep feeling, and an unfortunate desire to cater to the dancers' inner athlete that just about defines the company's aesthetic. Village Voice 11/29/05
Posted by ttobias at 10:36 PM
ACFDance
While some of Adrienne Celeste Fadjo's dancers outclassed their material, the overall impression was that of work not yet at a professional level. Village Voice 11/23/05Posted by ttobias at 10:28 PM
November 11, 2005
Joyce S. Lim & Paz Tanjuaquio
Two New York choreographers whose work is profoundly connected to southeast and eastern Asia paired up for a concert of striking contrasts. Village Voice 11/11/05Posted by ttobias at 10:19 PM
November 1, 2005
"Watching Ligeti Move: Three Ballets by Christopher Wheeldon"; "Rules of Engagement"
Any one of Christopher Wheeldon's dances to Ligeti would confirm this choreographer's astute craft and hint at an originality still struggling to emerge from a self-imposed tutelage under great masters. All three pieces proved that more can be less. The thrill of JoAnna Mendl Shaw's Rules of Engagement lay in the danger one sensed--and the erotic undercurrent present--in the close encounters of beast and human. Village Voice 11/1/05Posted by ttobias at 10:09 PM
October 18, 2005
"Ballets Russes"
This splendid documentary film shows how the Ballets Russes evolved into a pair of rival companies that crisscrossed America, seducing both cultural innocents and sophisticates with glamour, beauty, and transcendence. Village Voice 10/18/05Posted by ttobias at 8:50 PM
October 14, 2005
Juilliard Dance Ensemble
Abetted by the hypnotic effect of Steve Reich's Drumming, Eliot Feld's Sir Isaac's Apples seems to offer a God's-eye view of a human colony persevering in a faraway landscape. Village Voice 10/14/05Posted by ttobias at 8:42 PM
September 19, 2005
Kim Whittam & Company; Compagnia Danza Francesca Selva
Whittam's lithe, upbeat dancers look vastly at ease in movement that's both slinky and bubbly, laced with the warmth and trust necessary to its contact improv tactics; Selva's Just Walking looks like it wants to be "about" something--postmodern anomie, the vicissitudes of love, Tuscan traditions--but it never makes clear just what. Village Voice 9/19/05Posted by ttobias at 8:33 PM
Glen Rumsey Dance Project
The dancers serve as mere mannequins for ravishing, bizarre outfits featuring transparent plastics, floating gauze, crimson in a dozen dramatic guises, and pearly balloons. Village Voice 9/19/05Posted by ttobias at 8:19 PM
August 23, 2005
La Compagnie de l'Entorse; Regina Nejman
Raw depictions of escalating hysteria from La Compagnie de l'Entorse depend almost entirely on Charlotte Schioler's gift for expressionist dance; The Velocity of Things is proof that postmodern tactics can benefit from an infusion of the color, pulse, and spirit Regina Nejman absorbed in her native Brazil. Village Voice 8/23/05
Posted by ttobias at 9:52 PM
August 15, 2005
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
A 22-member crew of personable, versatile performers, accomplished in a mix of ballet, modern, and jazz modes, who are out to please without begging. Village Voice 8/15/05Posted by ttobias at 9:44 PM
July 25, 2005
Tom Pearson; Joyce SoHo Presents
The movement of "Reel"--now angular and thrusting against the air, now sinuously splayed against the ground--looked as if it might belong to an ancient tribal culture with ties to various postmodern nations (Tom Pearson); With no obvious structure and only the smallest hints of message, Breezy Berryman's "Widow's Walk" satisfied simply through the precision, vitality, and rhythmic sense of its five robust dancers (Joyce SoHo Presents). Village Voice 7/25/05Posted by at 6:04 AM
July 19, 2005
Pilobolus
I didn't so much mind the gratuitous brutal hostility--one must, after all, move with the times--but the adolescent acting out of childish fantasies rooted in the grotesquely disgusting . . . Village Voice 7/19/05Posted by at 5:52 AM
Mark Foehringer Dance Project/San Francisco
In a ruminative homoerotic duet rife with emotional subtlety, even acrobatic moves look like the characters' natural means of expression. Village Voice 7/19/05Posted by at 5:46 AM
July 5, 2005
"The Lure of Perfection"
Simply through scrupulous descriptions of what people wore, the writer brings social and theatrical milieus alive. Village Voice 7/5/05Posted by at 12:59 PM
June 10, 2005
Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg; ABT Studio Company
Love and death, in their myriad guises. Village Voice 6/10/05Posted by at 5:38 AM
May 31, 2005
Les Ballets Grandiva
They demonstrate essential dance qualities--a profound sense of rhythm, gorgeously shaped phrasing, palpable joy in motion, and lionhearted courage in performance--that once sees all too rarely these days in the highest temples of the art. Village Voice 5/31/05Posted by at 12:55 PM
Chunky Move
Tense Dave's neighbors (or fantasies) include an elegant sadist, a nightgowned damsel with extravagant suicidal impulses, a languid lady given to enacting the scenarios of Victorian bodice rippers, and a creepy fellow who does nasty things to small creatures in his spare time. Village Voice 5/31/05Posted by at 12:45 PM
May 24, 2005
Momix
Lunar Sea is not a dance but rather multimedia light entertainment for the eyes that blithely ignores engaging the mind or heart. Village Voice 5/24/05Posted by at 12:30 PM
May 16, 2005
Nrityagram Dance Ensemble; Andrea E. Woods/Souloworks
Dare I say that the show sometimes seems unreal in its surface perfection, as if the irregularities and ambiguities that make art and life profound had yielded to Disneyfication? (Nrityagram); Andrea E. Woods may be essentially a solo performer--as Souloworks, the punning title of her enterprise, indicates--but she has a steady partner in the rhythmically cut, boldly angled video footage she creates as accompaniment. Village Voice 5/16/05Posted by at 12:11 PM
May 5, 2005
Pam Tanowitz Dance
The choreography evolves from walking to whirling, from moves as plain as street signs to the complex body language of emotional enigmas. Village Voice 5/5/05Posted by at 12:00 PM
April 19, 2005
New York City Ballet's Sofiane Sylve
Sofiane Sylve's sheer physical vitality feels like an engine that energizes the entire theater, filling it with joy. Village Voice 4/19/05Posted by at 9:29 AM
Peter Boal & Company; Paige Martin and Caitlin Cook
Retiring from the stage in June, Peter Boal, longtime New York City Ballet principal and a bastion of pure classical dancing, appeared with his chamber company for perhaps its final season. . . . Paige Martin and Caitlin Cook: A program curated by pomo dance celebrity Sarah Michelson should have been more striking. Village Voice 4/19/05Posted by at 9:13 AM
April 4, 2005
Beth Soll & Company; Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
Soll herself is unforgettable--as alert, quick, clear, and delicate as a lark. . . . Aspen Santa Fe Ballet appeals with easily accessible choreography, forcefully executed by dancers who are as bright and attractive as the imaginary people in ads selling you vacations. Village Voice 4/4/05Posted by at 5:51 AM
March 29, 2005
Shannon Hummel/Cora; Dancemopolitan
Hummel's Elsewhere is enormously sophisticated on several levels, from the nuanced gradations of feeling expressed to stage pictures that remain beautifully calibrated whether the figures are still or running amok. . . . Packed into Joe's Pub for Dancemopolitan, we're craning our necks to ogle the tiny corner platform that serves as a stage for the cabaret show of postmodern dance. Village Voice 3/29/05Posted by at 5:41 AM
March 15, 2005
Royal Ballet School
My bets for a glorious future are on Joseph Caley, a fresh-faced and courageous high flier who might be the hero of a child's adventure story--prodigious in his skills, ingenuous in his beauty. Village Voice 3/15/05Posted by at 12:37 PM
February 28, 2005
Cathy Weis Projects
Impelled by her unabashedly maverick imagination, Cathy Weis melds dance, video, and the fact that she has multiple sclerosis into haunting theater pieces. Village Voice 2/22/05Posted by at 10:46 AM
Elisa Monte Dance; Configuration
Monte's choreography is handsome and functional, but all her devices remain standard; on the Configuration program, only Harrison McEldowney's "At the End of the Road" offered genuine joy and wit. Village Voice 2/22/05Posted by at 10:35 AM
RoseAnne Spradlin
I guess RoseAnne Spradlin has death on her mind. Village Voice 2/8/05Posted by at 10:23 AM
February 14, 2005
Eighth Annual Japanese Contemporary Dance Showcase
The strongest works demonstrated an international outlook, incorporating much Western influence while retaining a stylization and emotional obliqueness characteristic of Asian art. Village Voice 1/25/05Posted by at 7:01 AM
February 12, 2005
De Facto Dance
In Beginnings, they pace, twist, run, tumble, crawl, and pose in photo-op freeze-frames, intermittently spoofing the pretensions that can attach themselves to the creation of a dance. Village Voice 1/14/05Posted by at 5:44 AM
February 11, 2005
Yanira Castro + Company
The curtains fly up—as at a peep show—to reveal a wraithlike figure clad only in panties and a gauzy robe that suggests flayed skin. Village Voice 1/11/05Posted by at 4:10 AM
February 10, 2005
Lionel Popkin & Andy Russ
A shared program by Andy Russ and Lionel Popkin offered excursions to the studio and the kitchen (with adjoining bedroom). Village Voice 1/11/05Posted by at 5:53 AM
December 20, 2004
New Dances at Juilliard
All four choreographers—Janis Brenner, Susan Marshall, Ronald K. Brown, and Robert Battle—displayed an astute understanding of the newcomers' formidable gifts and limited experience plus well-nigh palpable affection and respect for the rising generation. Village Voice 12/20/04Posted by at 8:21 AM
Himiko Minato & Dancers
A tense, haunted figure, Minato plays a tormented pilgrim in a dark forest, involved with lethal human threats as well as a portentously symbolic rope hanging from above. Village Voice 12/20/04Posted by at 8:10 AM
December 14, 2004
Margot Fonteyn: A Life, by Meredith Daneman
Daneman’s sensibilities, thinking, and writing style are insufficiently sophisticated for the task of making Fonteyn live on paper. I suspect only a poet would be equal to it. Village Voice 12/14/04Posted by at 8:27 AM
November 15, 2004
Monica Bill Barnes
At each of their recurrent impasses, unable to establish a mode of togetherness that will last, yet determined not to part, they face each other as if to ask, "Where do we go from here?" Village Voice 11/15/04Posted by at 7:48 AM
November 8, 2004
Henning Rubsam / Sensedance
The radiance the program possessed was due largely to the presence of performers borrowed from the beleaguered Dance Theatre of Harlem, who seem to operate from sources deep inside them. Village Voice 11/08/04Posted by at 8:04 AM
Kitt Johnson X-act
Slowly her fingers emerge from her shroud, their tips like tiny, vicious claws, her hands engendering subtle anatomical horrors that she places where her face should be. Village Voice 11/08/04Posted by at 7:56 AM
October 19, 2004
"Uqbartango"
Pablo Pugliese, born into a family of tango pros, entertains the notion that the soul of the genre can be expressed by augmenting its vocabulary with modern dance and ballet. Village Voice 10/19/04Posted by at 9:32 AM
"Mountain View Estates"
Kourtney Rutherford, whose résumé adds three years in construction work to familiar dance and drama credits, spins a goofy, macabre tale in a half-built tract house set. Village Voice 10/19/04Posted by at 9:25 AM
Octavia Cup Dance Theatre
Laura Ward's new, ambitious, bilingually titled Enredaderas: Entanglemnts opts for excess at every turn. Village Voice 10/19/04Posted by at 9:14 AM
October 12, 2004
Dancenow/NYC
Dusan Tynek stood out for his skill at implying feelings through movement. Village Voice 10/12/04Posted by at 8:58 AM
September 20, 2004
Limón Dance Company
Carla Maxwell, artistic director of the Limón Dance Company: "Susanne [Linke] works from the inside out, striving for nuance and depth. The process is like a metamorphosis." Village Voice 9/20/04Posted by at 8:44 AM
September 14, 2004
Decadancetheatre
The leading dancers of Jennifer Weber's Decadancetheatre bring—dare I say?—the feminine mystique to hip-hop. Village Voice 9/14/04Posted by at 7:59 AM
September 8, 2004
Dances by Paul D. Mosley
Mosley's evocation of the horrors that can breed in the roiling matrix of nuclear-family life rarely rises above soap opera level. Village Voice 9/8/04Posted by at 9:46 AM
August 30, 2004
Smuin Ballet
The nostalgia factor looms large in Come Dance Me a Song, evoking a time when we were happier than we are now. Village Voice 8/30/04Posted by at 9:36 AM
August 17, 2004
Universal Ballet of Korea
By far the most agreeable part of the Universal Ballet of Korea's "Romeo and Juliet" was the young company's personable dancers. Village Voice 8/17/04Posted by at 5:21 AM
August 11, 2004
Von Ussar Danceworks; Michiyo Sato and Dancers
Astrid von Ussar uses juicy, ferocious movement to create dances exploring relationships of the heart; Michiyo Sato summons a polyglot vocabulary and a gently feminist aproach to treat issues rooted in the history of her native Japan. Village Voice 8/11/04Posted by at 5:00 AM
July 26, 2004
Heidi Latsky Dance
Latsky personifies that state every dancer aspires to--in which intent and execution are one. Village Voice 7/26/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
July 20, 2004
"Martha @ Jane Street"
In dance genius and diva chutzpah, Graham was indeed a phenomenon ripe for travesty. Village Voice 7/20/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
McCaleb Dance
McCaleb is intensely and admirably image-conscious, but more often than not, her pictorial effects fail to provide a pathway to eloquent feeling. Village Voice 7/20/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
July 13, 2004
Jennifer Muller / The Works
Powerful, fluent, and downright gorgeous dancers perform hypnotic rituals extolling the human relationship to the wonders of nature. Village Voice 7/13/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
June 29, 2004
Tiffany Mills Company
Tiffany Mills tells us that out-of-control force and skewed perceptions belong to us all. Village Voice 6/29/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
June 25, 2004
Midsummer Night Swing
No matter that both your feet are lefties. Midsummer Night Swing will get them stepping and gliding with rhythm, grace, and spunk. Village Voice 6/22/04Posted by at 3:59 AM
School of American Ballet 40th Annual Workshop Performances
Most delightful was Susan Pilarre's staging of two chunks of Union Jack, in which technically brilliant incipient stars let themselves go, showbiz-style, with terrific humor and verve. Village Voice 6/22/04Posted by at 3:49 AM
Parsons Dance Company
David Parsons's choreography played second fiddle to the live music from the Ahn Trio that accompanied it. Village Voice 6/7/04Posted by at 3:15 AM
May 20, 2004
Margot Fonteyn in America: A Celebration
A lovely intimate exhibition . . . The entire room seems filled with the fragrance of roses. Village Voice 5/20/04Posted by at 3:15 AM
May 15, 2004
New York Theatre Ballet
Frederick Ashton's 1930 "Capriol Suite," a gloss on 16th-century dance forms, mingles peasants and aristocrats, lusty ebullience and aloof grace, easy charm and stabs of poignant imagination. Village Voice 5/14/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
May 14, 2004
John Ollom
They say everyone has one novel in him. It's the fruit of a life's experience--the tale, the feelings. John Ollom certainly does, but he happens to be a choreographer. Village Voice 5/14/04Posted by at 6:45 AM
Company Rindfleisch
Slow, subdued, and handsome, Elke Rindfleisch's "Enamoured" traces the vagaries of relationships--amorous and the inevitable opposite. Village Voice 5/14/04Posted by at 2:45 AM
May 10, 2004
Tanzmoto
Mohan C. Thomas had the maverick idea of melding Sufi dervish spinning with Latin American dance forms and rhythms. Village Voice 5/10/04Posted by at 5:50 AM
May 4, 2004
Lyon Opera Ballet
In Philippe Decoufle's "Tricodex" a wheeled wooden frame creates a proscenium evoking stages of yore; in and around it old-fashioned feats of balance and flying seem to be caught in gaslight illuminating the dark. Village Voice 5/4/04Posted by at 11:20 AM
April 26, 2004
Sharing the Honors
Balanchine, Graham, Ailey, and De Mille appear, separated by perforation lines of course, on the United States Postal Service’s new 37-cent commemorative--American Choreographers. Issue date: May 4, 2004. Village Voice 4/28/04Posted by at 12:00 PM
April 13, 2004
Ailey II; ABT Studio Company
They deliver physical wonders with a modesty so profound, it looks like our era's most endangered commodity—innocence. (Ailey) Their rendering of Ashton's sublime matched trios, Monotones I and II, which aimed, rightly, for immaculate classicism and calm repose, was infinitely poignant. (ABT) Village Voice 4/13/04
Posted by at 12:00 PM
April 5, 2004
Maureen Fleming
When she swathes her nude body in miles of gauze animated by a wind machine and lit to look like fire, you cave right in to her theatrical know-how. Village Voice 4/5/04Posted by at 12:00 PM
March 17, 2004
Shannon Hummel/Cora; Anita Cheng Dance
Typically, the figures of [Hummel's] imagination relate intensely to one another, while the hows and whys of their liaisons remain enigmatic; Anita Cheng's dance imagination teems with ideas [but] the moment has come for [her] to work deep instead of wide. Village Voice 3/17/04Posted by at 9:47 AM
March 10, 2004
Peter Boal & Company
Peter Boal: "The business of being a prince is not a look. It's not an action. It's a model. It's the supreme example of how to behave in life." Village Voice 3/10/04Posted by at 4:11 AM
March 1, 2004
Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance
Lavagnino uses [pointe work] not as the extension it is of classical ballet's svelte, codified vocabulary, but with deliberate perversity, as if the capability were a bizarre twist of nature. Village Voice 3/1/04Posted by at 11:04 AM
February 25, 2004
Buglisi/Foreman Dance
The company [is] admirable for its insistence on live music and its terrific dancers, among them Christine Dakin, a paragon of experienced artistry, and the very young and altogether luminous Helen Hansen. Village Voice 2/25/04Posted by at 10:51 AM
February 18, 2004
Fugate/Bahiri Ballet NY
The troupe was at its ravishing best in two small masterworks of lyrical dancing—Antony Tudor's serene Continuo,with its miraculous floating lifts, and George Balanchine's Valse-Fantaisie, a windswept bagatelle that restores your faith in romance. Village Voice 2/13/04Posted by at 9:55 AM
Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects
Many of the solos, duets, and small-group vignettes that constitute [Landmarks of Dreams] have a colorful, playful air typical of a circus with theatrical aspirations, their vocabulary cheerfully mixing acrobatics, ethnic dance, and the ingenious cantilevering of contact improv. Village Voice 2/13/04Posted by at 9:37 AM
January 21, 2004
Vintage Russian Ballet Stars Via DVD
Classical dance fans in the West are perennially thrilled to hear that the Russians are coming. Via the burgeoning DVD industry, they're traveling across space and out of the past—on small, shiny disks designed to last forever. Village Voice 1/21/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
January 7, 2004
George Balanchine: Centennial Celebrations
This season marks the 100th anniversary of George Balanchine's birth, and the dance world is rushing around commemorating it with productions of the ballets, exhibitions in multiple media, symposiums, lecture-demonstrations, and so on. Some of the activity will be wonderful. Some of it, inevitably, will be mediocre or, worse, merely bandwagon behavior. Village Voice 1/7/04Posted by at 11:00 AM
December 11, 2003
New York City Ballet's "Nutcracker"
The sedate elders [surrounding the children] serve as models of gracious decorum, as if civilization were achieved along with the attainment of full height. Village Voice 12/10/03Posted by at 10:32 AM
December 9, 2003
Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre
Ambitious beyond its power to deliver, [Tynek's Pilot's Dream] is filled with vision, charm, and wit. Village Voice 12/10/03Posted by at 11:04 AM
December 4, 2003
"Personal Things in a Public Way"
[Jessi] Scopp . . . alternates lithe, quicksilver, frequently violent movement with ominous slow-motion and suspended or frozen postures - to terrific effect. Village Voice 12/03/03Posted by at 6:01 AM
November 26, 2003
Garth Fagan Dance
Cultivating their unique beauty and dignity, Fagan makes each member of his company look like a god in the pantheon of his imagination. Village Voice 11/26/03Posted by at 10:21 AM
November 22, 2003
Hubbard Street 2; "The Ballerina Fanny Elssler"
The second company of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, may be chamber-size, but its young dancers possess enough exuberance to fill a stadium. (Hubbard Street 2); No reference here to the legendary Elssler's sensuous allure. No nod even to the lush waltzing that's the national dance of Straussville. (The Ballerina Fanny Elssler) Village Voice 11/19/03Posted by at 9:46 AM
November 12, 2003
Noche Flamenca; "Black Burlesque (Revisited)"
[Soledad Barrio] can access the deepest, most primal feelings and project them directly to her audience. Impelled by will and imagination, she turns herself into an engine of arousal and destruction. (Noche Flamenca) [An] infectiously joyous show, which proves that distinctive ingredients need not be diminished or obscured when they meet and mix. (Black Burlesque [Revisited]) Village Voice 11/12/03Posted by at 10:51 AM
September 10, 2003
Dancenow/NYC; Treaders in the Snow: "Seraphita"
Where is it written that dancing requires a clear, well-lighted space? (Dancenow/NYC); The Treaders, a female trio of New York-based dancer-choreographers born and initially trained in Japan . . . are all expert performers in the hypersensitive vein that reminds you of creatures sensing their world through quivering antennae. (Treaders in the Snow) Village Voice 09/10/03Posted by at 6:30 AM
August 27, 2003
Pilar Rioja
At 70, the Spanish dancer Pilar Rioja has a figure women half her age might envy and, more important, a carriage that comes from decades of embodying pride in all its guises: joyous, disdainful, enraged, malevolent, erotic, and undaunted by grief. Village Voice 08/27/03Posted by at 6:48 AM
July 9, 2003
Nancy "Bannon: "It’s a Cruel, Cruel Summer"; Henning Rübsam's Sensedance
Nightswimming casts Limón veteran Nina Watt as-of all things-a tree viciously cut down. [The] exquisitely calibrated choreography details the disruption of the thrumming systems that constitute botanical life, while Watt embodies a mute consciousness of the fatal attack-a kind of biological shock and grief-that offered profound ramifications. (Bannon) [The] ambitious new Garden . . . set to traditional Iraqi music . . . does a good job of suggesting an intricate cultural community inhabited by tillers of the soil and odalisques, fiery demons and beneficent goddesses. (Rübsam) Village Voice 07/09/03Posted by at 12:19 PM
June 25, 2003
School of American Ballet 39th Annual Workshop
[Nikolaj] Hübbe managed to instill in his protégés a command of the [Bournonville] choreography's unique charms: the calm upper body riding the fleet action of the feet; the space-grabbing leaps with their invisible preparations and pillow-soft landings; the maverick timing; and, no less important, the pervading sense of unquenchable joy. Village Voice 06/25/03Posted by at 4:10 AM
June 18, 2003
Chamber Dance Project; Zig Zag Ballet
Classical ballet, with its appetite for space and grandeur, calls for opera-house scale. Does that make the concept of chamber ballet a contradiction in terms? Two mini-troupes at the Kaye Playhouse in May argued persuasively that intimacy has its own charms. Village Voice 06/18/03
Posted by at 9:22 AM
June 11, 2003
Johannes Wieland
Since he relocated to New York three years ago, the German-born Johannes Wieland . . . has developed a singular, striking body of work. Concise and abstract, though hinting at mood, situation, and relationships, his dances are visually handsome in a stern Bauhaus style. Their movement is tightly controlled, with ferocious outbursts that read as frustration and rage at the human condition. Village Voice 06/11/03
Posted by at 2:18 AM
June 4, 2003
Ben Munisteri Dance Projects; Compañia de la Danza Narciso Medina
Facing the viewer straight-on with a clear-eyed gaze, handsome athletic bodies made large, clear, energetic moves that looked like metaphors for optimism. (Munisteri) The evening's most unselfconscious and engaging number, Música del Cuerpo (Music of the Body), [had] the dancers providing the audible as well as the visible rhythms. (Medina) Village Voice 06/04/03
Posted by at 3:39 AM
May 31, 2003
American Ballet Theatre; New York City Ballet
NYCB and ABT, America's top two ballet troupes, have been playing rival spring seasons at Lincoln Center for more than two decades. Time was, the most profound and thrilling art lay with NYCB. Little by little, without Balanchine's galvanizing presence as chief choreographer and—this should not be underestimated—chief coach, the power of attraction shifted to ABT, with its warmer performing style, its growing complement of male virtuosi, its recent cultivation of tall, fresh, and athletic "American Girl" ballerinas (Gillian Murphy, Michele Wiles), and the occasional dazzling guest star. Overall, ABT's repertory can't compete with the stock of Balanchine and Robbins dances held by the NYCB. But with that unique heritage now unevenly performed and glutted and dulled with an excess of Martins and Wheeldon, ABT has slipped into first place. With its ingratiating performances, it's the company that offers more fun. Village Voice 05/28/03Posted by at 7:10 AM
May 28, 2003
New York Theatre Ballet: Antony Tudor program
The chamber-sized New York Theatre Ballet is determined not to let the genius of Antony Tudor disappear from view. . . .Tudor is neglected because he doesn't suit the dominant taste of our time, for grand-scale extravaganza, which degenerates all too easily into flash and trash. Having wrested a uniquely expressive language from ballet's traditional abstract vocabulary, he offers instead a piercing view of human psychology and a profound sympathy for the workings of the more-often-than-not defeated heart. Village Voice 05/28/03Posted by at 6:01 AM
May 7, 2003
American Ballet Theatre's ad campaign; Dr. Glory van Scott: Tribute to Fred Benjamin
American Ballet Theatre, frantic to sell tickets to its season at the Metropolitan Opera House . . . has embarked on an ad campaign that goes beyond the foolish to the offensive. Benjamin's Ailey-esque mix of jazz, modern dance, and ballet, used to depict easily recognizable sentiments and situations, is happily studded with unique touches, some witty, some poetic.Village Voice 05/07/03Posted by at 7:39 AM
April 29, 2003
Richard Daniels; Nicholas Leichter and Claire Byrne
Wee Hours . . . a suite of solos and duets set to piano nocturnes . . . explores the tenderness, the vulnerability, the unreasoning anger, and the haunting fears that possess the soul when it hovers between sleeping and waking. (Daniels) [In] Coalesce . . . the partners form a single organism, with eight limbs but a single mind and heart. (Leichter and Byrne) Village Voice 04/30/03Posted by at 7:51 AM
April 16, 2003
Darrah Carr Dance
The dancing of the all-female troupe is . . . beguiling: lusty and luscious where appropriate, elsewhere as light, calm, and carefree as the early spring breeze. Village Voice 04/16/03Posted by at 8:02 AM
April 9, 2003
Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham: The Horse's Mouth
One moment . . . disarmed . . . Harold "Stumpy" Cromer vividly recalling hoofing in the Depression while Gemze de Lappe and Gus Solomons jr improvised a duet full of wit, love, and the wisdom of long experience. Village Voice 04/09/03Posted by at 8:09 AM
March 24, 2003
Ailey II
A whole bunch of people are doing something right: Besides being fierce technicians, the young dancers of Ailey II, under the direction of Sylvia Waters (Aaron Davis Hall, March 14 though 16), infuse their performances with heart and soul. As we've seen with their parent company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the approach can transform mediocre choreography. Village Voice 03/24/03Posted by at 8:15 AM
March 19, 2003
J Mandle Performance: Feast; Alexandra Beller and Mira Kingsley: We Sink as We Run
The look of the thing is handsome, like an ultra-chic magazine animated into a tantalizing (and ravishingly clothed) half-life. (Mandle) [The piece] explores the marvelous human ability to experience disparate emotions simultaneously. Even at the height of tragedy . . . we are assailed and relieved by the ridiculous. (Beller and Kingsley) Village Voice 03/19/03Posted by at 8:25 AM
March 12, 2003
Buglisi/Foreman Dance
[The] evocative dim lighting [of Buglisi's Requiem], now glowing, now ashen, reveals five women draped in baroque swaths of gleaming fabric tinted bronze, gold, cream, and dried-blood burgundy. Their dance-nothing more than sculptural postures and gestures, simple runs and collapses-turns them into anguished victims, stricken corpses, souls rising to heaven, heroic monuments. Throughout, cloth seems as sensuous and vulnerable as flesh. Village Voice 03/12/03Posted by at 8:38 AM
February 26, 2003
Royal Ballet School
[They] performed their assigned tasks carefully and competently, always with attention to grace. But . . . their dancing contains little breath, little evidence of imagination, almost no expression beyond what can be rehearsed. Village Voice 02/26/03Posted by at 8:43 AM
February 12, 2003
Bill Shannon
Bill Shannon (a/k/a "CrutchMaster")['s] . . . moves, though limited, provide an engaging contrast between percussive pacing and lyrical gliding, and they're spiced with sleight-of-hand feats and illusions of flying as his legs swing free. Village Voice 02/12/03Posted by at 8:50 AM
January 29, 2003
"Dance in America": Born to Be Wild; Allyson Green and Ben Wright: Interim
[The hour-long show] features four of American Ballet Theatre's galaxy of fabulous male stars: Jose Manuel Carreño, Angel Corella, Vladimir Malakhov, and Ethan Stiefel. [It] has clearly been designed for popular consumption, urging the viewer to understand these phenomenal athlete-artists as regular guys. (Born to Be Wild) [This] extended duet . . . is rooted in the way- back-then '20s, when pastel sentiments flourished in American culture. (Green and Wright) Village Voice 01/29/03
Posted by at 8:56 AM
January 20, 2003
Dancewave's Kids Company
[Mark Morris's] work accommodates these as yet unformed aspirants. It forgives the limitations of their skills, makes their awkwardness touching, and reveals their best qualities-seriousness of purpose, charm, vulnerability, desire, radiance. Village Voice 01/20/03Posted by at 9:04 AM
January 8, 2003
Dancer's Night Out: Kimberly Bartosik, Richard Siegal, and Kathy Westwater
Both the bios of these dance makers and the solid craft of their pieces contradicted the series' claim to be presenting artists we know best as dancers, trying their choreographic wings-but no matter. We must take pleasure as it comes to us. Village Voice 01/08/03Posted by at 9:09 AM
December 25, 2002
Newsteps: Anne Zuerner, Shannon Hummel, Summer Morgan, Valerie Norman, Joshua Bisset, Naeko Shikano, Vicky Virgin, and Laura Peterson
Portraying an auditioning opera singer [in her Solo for the History of Piece, Summer] Morgan evoked a doomed Jean Rhys heroine-all ravaged beauty and morbid sensitivity. Village Voice 12/25/02Posted by at 9:14 AM
December 13, 2002
Christopher Caines; Silesian Dance Theatre: Straight Into the Eyes
Snow . . . harks back to the modest scale and subtle emotional range of early ballets by Tudor and Ashton, [but it] achieves nothing like the dramatic power of these models. (Caines) [Jacek] Luminski's choreography is ostensibly rooted in his extensive research into Polish folk tradition and Hasidic ecstatic rituals, [but] . . . I didn't see much connection to these resources . . . on stage. Village Voice 12/13/02
Posted by at 9:19 AM
December 11, 2002
George Balanchine: The Nutcracker; Mark Morris: The Hard Nut
Each choreographer recognizes the delicate balance [E.T.A.] Hoffmann proposed between gemütlichkeit and the darker regions of the erotic, the phantasmal, and the demonic. Village Voice 12/11/02
Posted by at 9:26 AM
December 4, 2002
Xavier Le Roy
Le Roy begins [his 50-minute solo, Self-Unfinished] by turning himself into a postmodern Coppélia doll, moving as if the sequential postures and steps that normally connect and flow in a living being had been reduced to small, discrete elements executed by a creaky inanimate mechanism. Village Voice 12/04/02Posted by at 9:31 AM
November 13, 2002
Jeremy Nelson
Narrative, character, emotion, atmosphere-Nelson admits these theatrical elements into his SightUnseen only by implication, concentrating instead on kaleidoscopic reconfigurations of space by the bodies traveling through it. Narrow in vocabulary, the choreography is opulent in texture. Village Voice 11/13/02Posted by at 9:43 AM
October 2, 2002
Momix
Inspired by the sunstruck landscape of the American Southwest and the rituals of its indigenous peoples . . . Moses Pendleton's program-length Opus Cactus . . . is a collection of toys designed to beguile adults not necessarily addicted to dancing. Village Voice 10/02/02Posted by at 9:47 AM
September 18, 2002
Fringe Festival 2002
New York's annual Fringe Festival-a 17-day marathon of nearly 200 shows in 20 downtown theaters-lures its audience with the prospect of discovery. It offers rediscovery too, through visiting spaces rich in the history of neighborhoods and the cultures they've sheltered as well as the history of cutting-edge creativity. For a veteran, art-hungry New Yorker, personal history is likely to be involved as well. Village Voice 09/18/02Posted by at 9:52 AM