I didn’t read Maura Keefe’s program essay while sitting in Jacob’s Pillow’s Doris Duke Theater, waiting for the day to start. I didn’t read the program note by the versatile and highly regarded cellist Maya Beiser. I didn’t read the spoken text that was part of David Lang’s score. And, once the piece began, I didn’t identify one of the projected slides as showing Santiago Calatrava’s … [Read more...]
Redefining Wilderness in Music and Dance
Choreographer Brian Brooks and composer Jerome Begin collaborate at The Kitchen. I don’t know why Brian Brooks titled his fascinating new work Wilderness, since the word conveys that there’s no man-made order involved, while his “wilderness” is precisely structured with a considerable amount of over-and-over repetition by eight black-clad dancers (costumes by Karen Young). On a white floor, … [Read more...]
The Beautiful Complications of Simplicity
Brian Brooks Moving Company brings new and old works to the Joyce Theater If I were asked to put choreographer Brian Brooks into a category, I’d have to coin a term: maximinimalist. His works are economical in terms of material and/or structure, but enriched into expressiveness by the ways in which he builds them. Take his 2010 Motor, which made an unexpected appearance on Brian Brooks … [Read more...]
Dancing the Breaking Point
Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion premieres new works at New York Live Arts. You can’t really call Kyle Abraham’s rise to fame meteoric. He has been working persistently and imaginatively for around eight years. Yet few young choreographers have garnered as many awards, residencies, fellowships, and commissions as he has in the last five years. The works that Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion is … [Read more...]
Is My Wife Having an Affair?
When Christopher Wheeldon founded a dance company in 2007 and called it Morphoses/the Wheeldon Company, he couldn’t have known how prophetic that name would become. From the beginning, the repertory balanced works by Wheeldon, one of the most gifted choreographers of his generation, with those by other youngish artists. Three years later, Wheeldon left Morphoses after a serious dispute over the … [Read more...]