The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company Celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season Once upon a time, most modern dance choreographers created companies named after them and starred in their own works. In 1958, Alvin Ailey was an exception. The José Limón Company and the Martha Graham Dance Company became repertory companies after the death of their founder. In recent years, Paul Taylor and later … [Read more...]
Colliding Ideas
Tere O'Connor Dance appears at the Joyce Theater in the second week of NY Quadrille. It’s no secret that Tere O’Connor wants the dances he makes to be about themselves. He reveals this on his website, in his program notes, and in interviews. He puts it more eloquently than I can, stating that over his decades-long immersion in dance, “I’ve discovered that traits such as inference, essence, … [Read more...]
Mysterious Beauty
Pam Tanowitz Dance kicks off "NY Quadrille," a two-week season masterminded by Lar Lubovitch. Over the years, dance has acquired a reputation for mysteriousness. This vexes many people, enchants others, and confuses others still more. After seeing Pam Tanowitz’s Sequenzas in Quadrilles at the Joyce Theater, I walked along the sidewalk a bit ahead of two women who were energetically … [Read more...]
Up and Coming Meet the Masters
Juilliard Dance presents works by Tharp, Lubovitch, and Feld. Suzanne Beahrs Dance performs at Danspace. I count Twyla Tharp’s Baker’s Dozen among the world’s great dances. When I saw it in 1979, performed by her marvelous company, I thought I’d die of pleasure. How could I not hustle uptown to see Juilliard Dance’s annual challenge to its super-talented students, when Baker’s Dozen was … [Read more...]
Tides Beyond Ebb and Flow
The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company celebrates its 45th anniversary. Permit me to be fanciful about why Lar Lubovitch chose to devote the first half of the first of two programs his company is presenting at the Joyce to three duets (not a decision I would have recommended). However, Lubovitch founded the group that bears his name 45 years ago, and ever since, he has been showing us how … [Read more...]
And Then They Talked Some More
Whoever said that dancers can’t talk well in public? These days, shutting up and just dancing is often not in the cards (there are some particulars that movement alone can’t reveal). This struck me when five of the seven performances that I managed to take in during four days of the annual event-crammed conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) involved … [Read more...]
Going with the Flow
In 2000, I saw Lar Lubovitch’s Men’s Stories: A Concerto in Ruins at the Angel Orensanz Center on the Lower East Side. The former synagogue with its dark wood paneling, high blue vault of a ceiling, and stained glass windows gave the nine superb dancers who rushed in and out of it a slightly mystical aura—as if they’d channeled the ghosts of rabbinical students maddened by their studies. The … [Read more...]