God, did I love the Joe Goode Performance Group's show last week at the Joyce--and I sure didn't expect to from the reviews. So I was trying to figure out how to talk about him in a way that caught his balancing act, how he manages to vault over cornball sentiment while honoring it. A tricky accomplishment--and I don't know whether I did it justice in this review for the Financial Times (I never … [Read more...]
Postscript on Cunningham’s “Nearly Ninety”
Here's the review of mine I promised to link to--in the wonderful Financial Times, where the dear, charming Hilary Ostlere used to write. Please click! One of the heavenly tangles in Nearly Ninety (dancers Silas Reiner, Holley Farmer, and Koji Mizuta; Photo: Andrea Mohin/The New York Times)A few followup notes: So we critics agreed about one thing, at least, that Nearly Ninety's set by … [Read more...]
University of California budget cuts threaten to wipe out dance classes (UPDATED M, 4/27)
My friend Paul Parish, irregular Foot contributor, writes from Berkeley: Don't know if you'll be as upset as I am to hear that the projected budget cuts at UC Berkeley are very likely going to wipe out the dance program -- the one in women's phys ed, NOT the Dance program in Performance Studies. But the phys ed program has been there for a hundred years -- Cal was the first state university … [Read more...]
Go: Final exits at “Nearly Ninety”
I have a review coming out--Monday, I think it is; I will link to it here--on the BAM Cunningham show that runs through Sunday, so I will keep mum on the subject except to say: It's worth going (of course--this is Cunningham) and it's your last chance to see the the serenely regal and eloquent Holley Farmer and the heartbreakingly immediate Daniel Squire do Cunningham. It's also the last … [Read more...]
Vicky Shick’s ripe “Glimpse”
The postcard for Vicky Shick's Glimpse--commissioned by the Extremely Hungary Festival and Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, which presented the dance last weekend--is a photo of a worn Hungarian-English dictionary opened to a page of ps: pelda to pince. Penz follows pentek as money does Friday only to take off on a byway: pep (pulp; the flesh pitted of structure). That's how the soft, … [Read more...]
Ahistorical (No! Historical!: Updated with comments)
[UPDATE: Scroll down for illuminating comments (taking me to task, yes they do) by Bob Yesselman, former head of DanceNYC, and John Wyszniewski, marketing manager from 2004 to 2007 of Dance Theater Workshop (DTW), one of the debt-plagued organizations La Rocco discusses.] Claudia La Rocco is probably the best dance journalist around. Working at the Associated Press since college, she knows how to … [Read more...]
Deja-vu fest?
This winter, a deadline forced me to miss Janie Taylor in Balanchine's "La Valse" at New York City Ballet. I felt even more gloom than usual at missing her--I try to catch everything she does--because the reviews confirmed, as Alastair Macaulay, chief dance critic at the New York Times, wrote, thatno other recent interpreter... is so right for the heroine as the febrile, driven Janie Taylor. The … [Read more...]
Sound Memory fast-forwarded (with added dialogue between Eva and Apollinaire)
About a year ago, a rough draft of Julian Barnett's "Sound Memory" at the La Mama Festival jumpstarted all sorts of memories for me, and now it's back in full: at Danspace Project this Thursday through Sunday. The esteemed Eva Yaa Asantewaa, irregular Foot contributor, has a half-hour interview with Barnett here on her blog, Infinite Body. I love Eva's interview style--her engagement and clarity, … [Read more...]
Movies, bars, and ballet
My friend Paul Parish, irregular Foot contributor, writes from the Bay Area: The world sure is looking unfamiliar -- not unrecognizable, just distorted and actually "on-the-morph." San Francisco Ballet's "Swan Lake" did unbelievable box office. Two million dollars in sales, biggest box office ever for SFB. High ticket prices, of course. Standing room's gone up to 20 bucks, and standing room was … [Read more...]
GO: Balanchine’s one-act “Swan Lake”
Earlier this season, worrying over the first-time Balanchine audience drawn by the $25 orchestra seats at New York City Ballet, I warned against the Short Stories program. My thinking: though Balanchine's genius for unleashing the comedy in such recognizable genres as the tale of a toy animated by real feelings or the twisty gangster thriller runs through "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" and … [Read more...]