The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company presents a trilogy (through November 6th). Bill T. Jones has always liked to talk on stage—while dancing or when not dancing. Sometimes he wants to get across ideas too complex to be expressed in movement alone; sometimes the movements expresses what was churning beneath the words, and sometimes the words hold the movements in check. Years ago, sitting … [Read more...]
When Is a Climax Not One?
The Yasmeen Godder Company from Israel mingles performers and spectators. When I last saw Yasmeen Godder’s choreography at the Kitchen in 2010, the dancers in her Singular Sensation often eyed the audience—challenging us, appraising us, flirting with us. However, a few feet of empty space separated even the front row of seats from their violent, messy world. Recently, Godder, based in … [Read more...]
Past, Present, and Future Meet in a Whirlpool
Imagine that you’re watching a group of workers assembling a large, complex object. So skillful are they that you can see what they are achieving, although you can’t always tell how they are bringing the object to life. You watch them fascinated—aware that rules, protocols, practices, and relationships govern their every move but not feeling deprived by your lack of knowledge. This what I … [Read more...]
Welcome to. . .Where Are We?
Danish Dance Theatre comes to the Joyce Theater, October 13-16. Help! I’ve been sucked into a nightmarish world known only to people who’ve seen too much dance. Its inhabitants seem familiar; they can thrust a leg sky-high, twist themselves into knots, and hurtle to the floor. They’re not afraid to look awkward or ugly and look wonderful—even virtuosic— doing that. They know that we’re … [Read more...]
Mysterious Beauty
Pam Tanowitz Dance kicks off "NY Quadrille," a two-week season masterminded by Lar Lubovitch. Over the years, dance has acquired a reputation for mysteriousness. This vexes many people, enchants others, and confuses others still more. After seeing Pam Tanowitz’s Sequenzas in Quadrilles at the Joyce Theater, I walked along the sidewalk a bit ahead of two women who were energetically … [Read more...]
Dancing Alone and Together
Wendy Whelan, Brian Brooks, and Brooklyn Rider at Jacob's Pillow, July 7-31 “Adventuress” isn’t a word I’d use to describe the marvelous dancer Wendy Whelan. Not because it’s a politically incorrect term in today’s porous and egalitarian vision of gender, but because it conjures up a glamorous, unprincipled woman using her charms in order to fleece men of their money or marry them. No, … [Read more...]
From Chicago to Massachusetts
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago appears at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. I first saw Crystal Pite’s choreography by in 2008, when Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (sadly defunct) commissioned her Ten Duets on a Theme of Struggle (performed in rotation by five dancers). The most recent Pite work I wrote about was her 2015 Polaris, one of four works in Sadlers Wells London’s Lincoln Center … [Read more...]
Dancing With Your Selves
Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer present the New York premieres of two works. One source of theater’s magic lies in the interplay between what’s real and what’s not. An actor who is not actually the “Tom” of the play bids his wife “Susan” goodbye and walks out the door. It looks like a real door, but there’s no street out there, only dressing rooms and backstage equipment. We accept that a … [Read more...]
Twyla Tharp: Past, Present, Future
Twyla Tharp presents one new creation and two golden oldies at the Joyce. Watching Reed Tankersley perform the long opening solo in Twyla Tharp’s 1980 Brahms Paganini confirmed my sense that Tharp considers dancers as heroes. In this work, which closes the program at the Joyce Theater billed as “Twyla Tharp and Three Dances,” Tankersley, alone onstage, performs Book I (a theme and fourteen … [Read more...]
Serious Subjects, Powerful Dancing
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Lincoln Center season (6/8-19) What’s going on here? I exit onto the Lincoln Center Plaza after watching “21st Century Voices” one of the five programs that make up the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s season at the former New York State Theater. Although I’ve seen plenty of spiritual aspiration and yearning toward the light, I haven’t noticed many … [Read more...]