Sally Silvers, Sally Gross, and Sally Bowden share a program. “Sally.” Seldom has an evening of dance been more appropriately titled. The performances presented by the Construction Company at the University Settlement on Eldridge Street showcased choreography by three vintage Sallys: Sally Gross, who was involved with Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s; Sally Bowden, who emerged in the … [Read more...]
Darkness and Light, Heat and Ice
Kimberly Bartosik/Daela premieres a work at New York Live Arts A lighting designer and a choreographer walk into a bar and. . . . No this is not a way to begin, especially if a joke doesn’t ensue; instead, the sentence announces a life-and-art collaboration that more likely began backstage. Kimberly Bartosik, the choreographer, and Roderick Murray, the lighting designer, have … [Read more...]
Islands Meet Underwater
Vanessa Anspaugh presents a new work at Danspace St. Marks. “No man is an island,/ Entire of itself,/ Every man is a piece of the continent,/A part of the main.” John Donne knew that in 1623 when, in bed with an undetermined illness, he wrote “Meditation XVII” of his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Choreographer Vanessa Anspaugh may have had something similar in mind when she titled her … [Read more...]
Pushing Into the Upper Room
Sarah Michelson premieres 4 at the Whitney Museum, January 24-February 2, 2014. Watching three of the four related works that Sarah Michelson presented between 2011 and 2014 is like entering an immaculate world of passion abstracted. And by passion, I don’t mean that of one person for another; Michelson seems more deeply involved in the devotion, the single-minded burning zeal demonstrated … [Read more...]
Three Choreographers Grace a Busy Week
Vicky Shick, Doug Elkins, and Joanna Kotze show work in an event-filled January week. Every January without fail, New York offers a smorgasbord of dance. The Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) convenes in town, and the table is laid for it in every available performing space. The first two weeks of the month are also a time when dancers, choreographers, and dance enthusiasts … [Read more...]
Collapsing Three to Make a Fourth
Tere O'Connor's Bleed, premiering on BAM's Next Wave Festival, is built on the bones of three previous works. Writing about Tere O’Connor’s work is always a challenge (he himself does it very well). Watching his marvelous new Bleed in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Fishman Space is akin to recalling a night of dreaming. In it, as in dreams, events pour into one another, places morph into … [Read more...]
Fire Burning at Both Ends
Donna Uchizono Company premieres Fire Underground at New York Live Arts. The title of Donna Uchizono’s harrowing new work is Fire Underground. The words evoke flames smoldering, unable to break through. Fire under the skin. Fire heating up the brain. Anger that has to be restrained. Uchizono makes no secret of the dance’s source. She spent twelve years adopting a child in Nepal and … [Read more...]
How Many Ways In?
Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener collaborate on Way In. I wasn’t hung up on pink when I was a little girl. Much later, I read that studies had shown the color to have a calming effect on people in need of calming, such as jail inmates. And, sure enough, when I found myself sharing a pinkish bedroom for a year or so with another dancer, I frequently slept until 11 A.M. Entering St. … [Read more...]
How Comfortable Are You?
Anneke Hansen Dance performs a new work at the Martha Graham Studio. I pondered the title of Anneke Hansen’s new, full-evening dance before I saw the piece and again as I was walking home from what is now the Martha Graham Studio Theater. she is not a comfortable thing. What can that mean? That being a woman sometimes means not being comfortable with your body? That the way some people … [Read more...]
Life as Disorder, Order as Life
David Dorfman and Brian Brooks present new works in two of BAM's theaters. Choreographer David Dorfman wears his heart on his sleeve. As his newest work Come, and Back Again shows, it’s a very big heart and an imaginatively tailored sleeve. His past works have tackled political, historical, and social topics, but always in warmly personal ways. He’s not shy about friendship as a topic … [Read more...]