Spectrum Dance Theater brings Donald Byrd's The Minstrel Show Revisited to NYU Skirball Center. Eleven dancers take the stage at NYU Skirball Center in Donald Byrd’s The Minstrel Show Revisited. They’re strutting, prancing, raising white-gloved hands. How come I don’t recognize any faces? I can hardly tell which are women and which are men. Byrd has already made a point about racial … [Read more...]
Pat Graney and Colleen Thomas Explore Difference (Differently)
Two choreographers, Pat Graney and Colleen Thomas, tackle issues, such as gender roles, in very different ways. The 1960s weren’t all about Beatles, sit-ins, marches, pot, and communes. For many women, the post-war 1940s and the 1950s lingered on in spirit. Some of these women may have worn go-go boots and very short dresses, but they belonged to the unspoken club of wives who greeted their … [Read more...]
Perspectives on Classicism
American Ballet Theatre opens it Lincoln Center season with ballets by Morris, Ashton, and Tharp Ask a choreographer bred in modern dance to create a ballet for an esteemed classical company, and what ensues? If the choreographer in question is Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp, the resultant work often both honors tradition and knocks it around a little. This seemed true at American Ballet … [Read more...]
What Do We See and How Do We See It?
Danspace St. Mark's presents Moriah Evans's "Social Dance 9-12: Encounter." Leaving St. Mark’s Church after seeing Danspace Project’s presentation of Moriah Evans’s Social Dance 9-12: Encounter, I had a surprising thought about the experience: “This is so non-interesting that it’s interesting.” Then I spent the bus trip home wondering what I meant by that. Note that I didn’t think the … [Read more...]
70 Years of History Brought to Life
The José Limón International Dance Festival at the Joyce, October 13-25. José Limón was choreographing right up to the end of his life. His last dances, Orfeo and Carlota, premiered in 1972, the year of his death at 64. Those two works are included in the Limón Dance Company’s 70th anniversary celebration, now entering its second week at the Joyce Theatre. So is one of his earliest … [Read more...]
Dancing as the Leaves Fall
Fall for Dance returns to New York City Center for the eleventh time. Every autumn, as the leaves change color and begin to consider falling, Fall for Dance defines the verb differently: New Yorkers and savvy visitors buy bargain-price tickets and fall in love with dance—or at least with some of the twenty companies, small ensembles, pairs, and soloists who fill five mixed-bill programs at … [Read more...]
Dreaming a Never-Stopping Dance
The Seán Curran Company brings East and West together at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater. As you enter the BAM Harvey to see the Seán Curran Company’s Dream’d in a Dream, you not only glimpse an embodiment of the title, you begin to enter another kingdom. Not since Peter Brooks’ stunning production of the Sanscrit epic The Mahabharata introduced New Yorkers to the tactfully … [Read more...]
They Could Have Danced All Night
New York City Ballet presents its 2015 fall gala, "From the Runway to the Stage." For the fourth year in a row, the New York City Ballet has devoted its fall gala to fashion, a custom started by the vice-chairman of the NYCB board, Sarah Jessica Parker. Pairing celebrated couturiers with choreographers is a scheme that lures audiences with money to spend, as well as gowns to wear to the … [Read more...]
Girls Growing Up Black
Camille A. Brown & Dancers premieres Black Girl: Linguistic Play at the Joyce Theater. How fast their feet are! Skittering, stepping, bouncing up and down, kicking out those feet, six women dance as if the ground itself is both untrustworthy territory and something that needs mastering. Camille A. Brown calls her new, evening-long work Black Girl: Linguistic Play. She and her colleagues … [Read more...]
From Sweden: Taped and Set Free
K. Kvarnström Co/Kulturhuset City Theatre Stockholm performs at BAM Fisher. Eighteen years have passed since I first saw Kenneth Kvarnström’s choreography. That was at a rehearsal in his native Finland. Thirteen years ago, I viewed his beautiful Fragile at Jacob’s Pillow. So I can’t speak knowledgeably about his style, but I do see connections between Fragile and TAPE, which K. Kvarnström … [Read more...]