For a number of years, Cherylyn Lavagnino has been working to bring together in her choreography elements that interest her deeply: the classical vocabulary that she excelled in during her days as a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet and that she teaches at NYU-Tisch School of the Arts; the modern dance that she also trained in and performed; and her feelings about society and political unrest. … [Read more...]
Keeping a Heritage Alive
American Ballet Theatre opens its Lincoln Center season with one-act masterworks from its repertory. When watching the classics of 19th-century and early 20th-century ballet, it’s wise not to ask too many questions. When enjoying Michel Fokine’s 1909 Les Sylphides, for instance, you’re not supposed to wonder what this lone man is doing amid all these women in long, gauzy, white tutus, two … [Read more...]
From Denmark to New York
The New York City Ballet presents an evening of ballets by August Bournonville. In 1930, the year following the death of Serge Diaghilev and the dissolution of his company, Les Ballets Russes, its dancers and choreographers roamed Europe in search of jobs. After a stint in London, George Balanchine found work in Copenhagen as a guest choreographer for the Royal Danish Ballet, where he set … [Read more...]
You Read It Here
DANCENOW presents Mark Dendy's NEWYORKnewyork@Astor Place in Joe's Pub. The very small stage at Joe’s Pub is bursting with people, and I’m not talking about the eight real performers. I mean the many others they personify and the many they refer to in the interpenetrating layers of Mark Dendy’s NEWYORKnewyork@Astor Place, a DANCENOW commission. Leslie Cuyjet, for example, appears as a real … [Read more...]
King’s Champions
Alonzo King Lines Ballet at the Joyce Theater, May 5 through 10. The dancers of the San Francisco based Alonzo King Lines Ballet may resemble us, but they look more like members of another, related species—highly evolved physically, although not always contented with their state. The eleven who perform three works by King in the company’s season at the Joyce are superbly trained ballet … [Read more...]
A Union of Four Unalikes
Patricia Noworol Dance Theater performs at New York Live Arts. After I had seen Patricia Noworol’s ?Culture in 2013, when it was performed at St. Mark’s church, I wrote that the piece meshed “scrupulous designs with brashness, virtuosity, colloquial manners, outrage, and satiric political incorrectness.” The situation was volatile: Noworol, a violently skillful woman with a mane of blond … [Read more...]
Dancing Communities
Emily Johnson/Catalyst creates communities in our city. Emily Johnson’s Shore, the third part of a trilogy that was preceded by the Bessie-award-winning The Thank-You Bar and Nicugni, did not consist only of the performance that appeared at New York Live Arts from April 23-25. Beginning April 19, there were related community action events (land, water, and dune restoration) in the … [Read more...]
Come Spring!
The Mark Morris Dance Group performs at BAM. Was it George Balanchine who said he wanted us to see the music and hear the dancing when we were watching his ballets? Maybe he said only the first part of that. Mark Morris, I think, hopes for something similar when we see his choreography—not meaning that we should hear feet hit the floor, but that the dancers carry the music in their bodies, … [Read more...]
The Long Journey
How do you comprehend/contend with/survive death and upheaval? A hurricane topples structures and scatters hoarded mementos; memories blow through the minds of the dying. How to control those, how to hold your world together? David Neumann, actor-dancer extraordinaire, head of David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group, makes a piece and titles it I Understand Everything Better. The facts are these. … [Read more...]
Beauty All Around
Heidi Latsky Dance shows a new film and two dances at Montclair State University Alexander Kasser Theater, April 16 through 19. Ideal beauty has always been a slippery topic, certainly since Plato strolled the streets of Athens. We’re pretty clear about structural archetypes, despite nature’s occasional deviations and breeders’ genetic modifications: sheep are quadrupeds with woolly coats; … [Read more...]