I sit at my laptop, looking out the window into a green world far from New York City. The screen announces “The Philadelphia Matter 1972/2020,” and glimpsed behind it is the large, alarmed face of its creator: choreographer David Gordon. The piece (no surprise) is propelled, guided, and shaped by words. Printed, hand written, large and small, the words reinforce what we also may hear spoken, and … [Read more...]
Rooftop Rooms
People dancing in their rooms, their legs grazing furniture, their possessions on view for all to see. People dancing in meadows, in parks, on rooftops, through empty city streets, by the ocean. They are sometimes masked and almost always alone. Only longtime mates can sweat together. It’s 2020, and a pandemic has re-envisioned solitude. What ties these dancers together is the choreography … [Read more...]
In Memoriam: Sally Banes (1950-2020)
The dance historian and critic Sally Banes died on June 14th. The last time I saw her was several years ago in front of the Joyce Theater. She was in a wheelchair, smiling at me and speaking in a gentle voice, after her husband, philosopher Noël Carroll, had discreetly mentioned my name to her. I reminded her that the necklace I was wearing had been made by her mother; she told me politely … [Read more...]
Viewing from Home
Even during a pandemic, I doubt that a pianist would send out a video link that encouraged us to watch him/her practice at home while wearing, say, a bathrobe. Would a soprano work on perfecting an aria from a fire escape? (I could, of course, be wrong.) Recently dance companies of all kinds and sizes have been posting links to works past and present. Immured out of the city, I could gorge on … [Read more...]
Paul’s Worlds
In today’s virtual world, I’m tempted by dance every day. On a hilltop miles away from the city I love, I can take an online ballet class, see parts of the many performances that had to be canceled because of Covid-19, or watch videos streaming from a dance company’s vault. Some times I’d have to make an appointment; sometimes I’d have to pay. (Meanwhile, excuse me a minute, I’ve been advised to … [Read more...]
Merce Cunningham Redux
James Klosty’s Merce Cunningham Redux is a big book in several ways (try lugging it to a sunny spot; it weighs about six pounds). Published late in 2019 by Brooklyn’s powerHouse Books and selling for $75, it first came into the world as Merce Cunningham in 1975 (Saturday Review Press) and reappeared in paperback with a new introduction in 1986 (Limelight Editions). In those earlier decades … [Read more...]
Merce in Three Dimensions
Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) didn’t want to tell spectators how to look at his dances or how to interpret them. To him, the stage space was an open field, often busy with activity; we could look at whatever drew our gaze. His dances didn’t “go” with the music the way those of other choreographers did. Whether the scores that accompanied them were by his life partner John Cage or by other … [Read more...]
In Memoriam: Tobi Tobias (1938-2020)
Tobi Tobias passed away on February 13th after a long illness. She leaves her husband Irwin, her children, John and Anne, and four grandchildren. Those are bleak words, unlike any that usually come to mind when I think of Tobi and the wonderful, illuminating dance criticism she wrote for decades. I’ve just been re-reading with delight some of the pieces she posted on her artsjournal.com blog … [Read more...]
From Belgium to New York
When I think about the works by the brilliant Belgium-based choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker that I’ve seen over the years, I realize how the different New York spaces in which they were performed affected not just my eyesight, but my feelings. That idea slid into my brain last week, when I was watching—experiencing—her and four members of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas perform her 2017 … [Read more...]
Dancing with J.S. Bach
Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlink, so the story goes, had trouble sleeping at night in 18th-century Leipzig. So the amiable Johann Sebastian Bach composed thirty variations for harpsichord that his precocious and gifted pupil, 14-year-old Johann Gottheim Goldberg, might play at night to relax the insomniac. It is hard to imagine Bach’s Goldberg Variations helping anyone to get some shut-eye; … [Read more...]