My fellow blogger Tonya Plank (a.k.a Swan Lake Samba Girl) answers my question at the end of Foot contributor Paul Parish's intriguing post. Paul makes the argument that film's quality of weightlessness robs dance of its magic. I had wanted to know from readers if, in their experience, screen dance always paled next to the live stuff. Was it ever just different--equal but different? Ever … [Read more...]

In typical Foot fashion--peripatetically--Paul Parish brings us back to the disparity between the popularity of opera and ballet, discussed about a month ago here and here and here. Here's Paul: Liking either ballet or opera is like liking brandy -- all you need is to taste it once and you'll say, where's this been all my life? The main difference is recording. Very little of the physical … [Read more...]

Foot contributor Paul Parish sent me this email from the other coast, a de facto recommendation: The Oakland Dance Festival has got another weekend. It's a little like going to the Oakland Ballet used to be. There are kinda long waits between the numbers, but all the performances are full of energy, sincere, and they've got ideas.... I saw ODC last night, on a mixed bill put together by Charlie … [Read more...]

Earlier this spring, Dance/NYC sponsored a panel on dance and race. Foot contributor Eva Yaa Asantewaa contacted panelist and Dance Magazine chief Wendy Perron (whose race issue is now on line), and Perron enlisted Theresa Ruth Howard to file a report for Foot in Mouth. (I asked for an opinionated report, as Howard had been a vocal participant in the forum.) Theresa Ruth Howard is a former member … [Read more...]

Thanks to Artsjournal chief Doug McLennan, there is now a new sidebar category, Elsewhere, where I will post a rotating list of recent articles from Newsday, mainly. It's just under readers' comments, to the right. Today, a review of Ohad Naharin's "Decadance" at Cedar Lake. … [Read more...]

My friend and fellow blogger Terry Teachout thinks I'm a fool not to post my Newsday articles here. I don't want this blog to turn into a clearinghouse for work elsewhere, but given that the scantness of Foot posts by me often has to do with the other work I'm entangled in, I thought I'd post some reviews--eventually as a sidebar, as soon as I can figure that out. Here's a review of some great … [Read more...]

From Eva: Oh, my! Ohad Naharin! Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet! "Decadance!" Don't go if you don't want to feel as if someone has roughly grabbed you and dashed you all over the theater and left you winded, fighting for your life. Okay, maybe that doesn't sound terribly appealing but--trust me on this one--CLCB and Naharin will rock you. The dancers are talented and valiant. They have enormous … [Read more...]

I'm under the gun with writing and non-writing, paying and volunteer assignments, so my participation in this blog may be slight for the next couple of weeks. But upcoming from others: --Eva Yaa Asantewaa's "GO" recommendations and anything else she wants to do. --A report by Theresa Ruth Howard, dancer extraordinaire with Karole Armitage, on Dance/NYC's race and dance panel, held in May. Late in … [Read more...]

Or most of us, anyway. If you think there's absolutely no merit to American Ballet Theatre's new "Sleeping Beauty," then it doesn't matter how cramped the stage space is. For the rest of us, it just might matter a lot. Tony Walton's set has internal wings on both sides of the already relatively narrow Metropolitan stage; they shrink the stage space by about six feet (and more in the Act I and III, … [Read more...]

Since I've been babbling about the American Ballet Theatre's "The Sleeping Beauty" in excited anticipation, I thought I'd share my Newsday review. A bunch of critics aren't liking this production. The complaints have centered around the relation between the canonical material and the new interpolations--that the effect is too much of a stylistic mishmash. I find that hard to judge: for critics and … [Read more...]