[Shwe Man Thabin performs a Zat Pwe program at Asia Society.] One of the many things that struck me about the splendid exhibit Buddhist Art of Myanmar (at Asia Society through May 10) is the smile on the face of the many statues of Buddha on display. It’s a smile you sometimes see on dancers in traditional South Asian forms; no teeth are visible, and the slightly upturned corners of the … [Read more...]
Eyes: Open and Shut
[Katie Workum's Black Lakes at St. Mark's Church, April 9 through 11] I didn’t read the note that Katie Workum added to the program for her Black Lakes. This was not because I heeded her spoiler alert, which warned spectators who liked to approach a work with fresh eyes not to read further. I didn’t see even see the alert. I came to the Danspace Project presentation in St. Mark’s church … [Read more...]
Running Backward, Looking Ahead
The Stephen Petronio Company performs a new Petronio work at the Joyce and remounts Merce Cunningham's "RainForest." Decades ago, when Twyla Tharp was a feisty young choreographer, she said that maintaining and presenting dances from her repertory was just not something she wanted to do. It would be like chewing gum, she said, and who wanted to keep on chewing it after the initial flavor … [Read more...]
Travelling through Inner Space and Beyond
Rashaun Mitchell premieres his Light Years at New York Live Arts, April 1 through 4. Here are some of the thoughts that popped up when I was watching Rashaun Mitchell’s Light Years at New York Live Arts: evolution, planetary orbits, outer space, Adam and Eve, video-game warriors, science fiction. These images continue to pursue their separate, but sometimes related paths through my … [Read more...]
Ice Floes Meet and Part
The Liz Gerring Dance Company brings her Glacier to the Joyce Theater. Liz Gerring graciously titles her Glacier after the piece of music by Michael J. Schumacher to which it’s set. His score for guitar, piano, harp, cello, clarinet also contains recordings he made near Glacier Lake in Colorado, and it is these sounds that are prominent during the beginning of the dance: a rattle of little … [Read more...]
Juilliard Dance Tackles Masterworks
Martha Graham's Dark Meadow and Merce Cunningham's Biped are performed by Juilliard students. Every Spring, Juilliard’s dance students pass through a compelling ordeal and emerge as artists just beginning to come into full bloom. The ordeal is really an awakening. A work by a major choreographer is auditioned for, learned, rehearsed, and performed. The dancers come to understand how great … [Read more...]
Opening the Door, Inviting Visitors In
Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance Lincoln Center season invites other companies to share programs with Taylor's works. Beginning in the late 1920s, American choreographers, especially those pioneering what came to be called modern dance, built companies around themselves that featured their own works only. In the past decade and this one, we have seen a variety of ways in which … [Read more...]
Paul’s Worlds
Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance is inaugurated at Lincoln Center (March 11-29). Programming Paul Taylor’s new-to-New-York Sea Lark between his profoundly beautiful Arden Court (1981) and the equally gorgeous Esplanade (1975) during the Taylor company’s Lincoln Center season seems hardly fair to a piece that has little more in mind than a beach romp. You almost want to inquire, “Who let … [Read more...]
The Merce Resurrection
Compagnie CNDC d'Angers stages a Merce Cunningham Event in New York City. When Merce Cunningham decided that his company should be disbanded two years after his death, it wasn’t entirely clear what he expected to happen to the nearly 200 dances that he had made over the course of five decades. Some, of course, had been lost along the way, but a good number had been filmed, and more were … [Read more...]
Moving Toward the Light
Ronald K.Brown celebrates at the Joyce Theater the 30th anniversary of his Evidence: A Dance Company. Sometimes I think of choreographer Ronald K. Brown, the artistic director of Evidence: A Dance Company, as akin to a spiritually inspired basket maker, weaving beautiful strands of dancing together with time-honed skill. These strands mesh in patterns formed by eight passionate, spirited … [Read more...]