Vim Vigor Dance Company presents the New York premiere of Shannon Gillen's FUTURE PERFECT. The woods are full of shadows and lurking danger. We’ve known that ever since we first heard about Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. Too, anyone sitting in the Baruch Performing Arts Center’s black-box theater who saw Shannon Gillen’s Vim Vigor Dance Company perform her Separati last … [Read more...]
Lincoln Center 50 Years On – An Experiment In American Dance?
Reading Joseph Horowitz’s essay, “Bing, Bernstein, Balanchine,” and then re-reading the passages that apply to ballet at Lincoln Center, I’m suddenly thrown back to the 1960s and a different view of tradition and innovation. As a modern dancer in New York, I welcomed the founding of the New York State Council on the Arts in 1961 and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965. Would … [Read more...]
Merce in Nancy
CCN - Ballet de Lorraine presents three works from its repertory at the Joyce Theater. In 1984, France’s Ministry of Culture decentralized dance. No more choreographers holed up in Paris while the rest of the country, for the most part, did without. To date, France has nineteen Centres Chorégraphiques Nationaux, almost all of them headed by choreographers of consequence. The Ballet de … [Read more...]
Meetings Across Space and Time
Douglas Dunn + Dancers' Antipodes comes to roost in Danspace St. Mark's. If Douglas Dunn could see himself from behind, would his mind flip as well? This is not the kind of question most choreographers ask themselves. He does. Nor might many be tempted to name a dance of theirs Antipodes and then consider the many ways in which that term can be defined—say, as opposites, congenial or in … [Read more...]
From London to New Jersey
The Richard Alston Dance Company at Montclair State University's Peak Performances, February 2 through 5. What seems different? I’m sitting in the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University, waiting for the Richard Alston Dance Company to begin dancing. Having for some years attended events presented at Montclair State’s Peak Performances series, I’m now part of a full house of … [Read more...]
When the Last is not the Last
Batsheva Dance Company, live and on film, performs in New York. The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House is packed —the orchestra, the first balcony, the second balcony, all. The curtain rises, and thousands of eyes converge on a single person moving through time, frozen in space. On top of a slightly raised platform that crosses the back of the stage, a woman is running on … [Read more...]
Dancers on the Rampage
New York City Ballet premieres new works by Justin Peck and Pontus Lidberg. When a dance really fascinates me, I wish either that I could immediately see it all over again or that I could be instantly at home, hugging it to myself and processing my memories. Justin Peck’s new The Times Are Racing for the New York City Ballet made me feel this way. It’s set to Dan Deacon’s vivid, changeable, … [Read more...]
Glittering Athletes
Complexions Contemporary Ballet performs at the Joyce Theater, January 24 through February 5 Some dances aim to hit you over the head—not too hard, just enough to get your adrenaline rushing. Look at the dancers: strong, confident, beautiful, they can do anything. When they swing their legs into the air, a tree could fall. Their idea of a rest is shooting off a few very slightly less … [Read more...]
Inauguration, Dreaming, Rebelling
Ruth Patir's I dream of the elections at Danspace and Isadora Duncan in the 21st Century at the 92 Y Harkness Dance Center. In troubled times, we do strange things and see familiar ones differently. On Thursday night, January 19, 2017, I enter Saint Mark’s Church through the “wrong” door, because of construction work on the main entrance. From this small room, where occasionally during past … [Read more...]
California in New York
Two of the many dance performances that the week in the wake of New Years Day. Dance-loving Christians wishing to celebrate Epiphany (aka El Dia de los Tres Reyes Magos) would have done well to descend upon New York City, where the Association of Performing Arts Presenters was holding its annual conference (January 6 -10). “No room at the inn” might have been a prevailing message, and if … [Read more...]