This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on Sept. 17, 2007. Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) — On film, swathed head to ankles in a tube of stretch jersey, the only bare flesh a face like an ancient mask and work-toughened hands and feet, Martha Graham dances “Lamentation,” her landmark 1930 solo that […]
Thread: Personal Indulgences No. 2
People ask where your passion for something started. As if a passion were an unreasonable thing to have and needed to be justified by a specific root cause. For me, the devotion to dance began when I was a child and saw a picture in Life magazine. It was a small black and white photograph […]
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
This article originally appeared in Voice of Dance (http://www.voiceofdance.org) on August 27, 2007. Nureyev: The Russian Years / PBS “Great Performances” / August 29, 2007 Rudolph Nureyev. Photo courtesy Thirteen/WNET New York. Rudolph Nureyev (1938-1993), the Tatar ballet dancer, was a phenomenon before America and the world at large ever heard of him. Now there’s […]
Second Thoughts
This article originally appeared in Voice of Dance (http://www.voiceofdance.org) on August 21, 2007. Mark Morris Dance Group, Mozart Dances / New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC / August 15-18, 2007 Mark Morris Dance Group in Morris’s Mozart Dances. Photo by Stephanie Berger. I saw (and wrote about) the world premiere of Mark Morris’s Mozart […]
Zaha Hadid’s Forms Dance to Urban Beats; Beijing Opera Updated
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on July 26, 2007. Shen Wei Dance Arts production of “Second Visit to the Empress” (Photo: Stephanie Berger) July 26 (Bloomberg) — Thoreau was right when he wrote that urban life threatens to do us in. Frederic Flamand, director of the Ballet National de […]
Entangled Bodies, Gymnastic Feats Highlight Pilobolus NYC Dance
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on July 17, 2007. July 17 (Bloomberg) — Dressed in rakish, mismatched bits of theatrical costume, six feisty dancers evoke a ragtag traveling circus onstage and off. They’re down on their luck yet plucky, lacking the talent to match their big dreams. This is […]
Still a Phenomenon
This article originally appeared in Voice of Dance (http://www.voiceofdance.org) on June 28, 2007. Mikhail Baryshnikov and Hell’s Kitchen Dance / Howard Gilman Performance Space, Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYC / June 22-24, 2007 Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. Photo by Olivier Simola. Tragically, classical ballet dancers are athletically over the hill in their thirties. That leaves decades of […]
A Little Sojourn In Paradise
This article originally appeared in Voice of Dance (http://www.voiceofdance.org) on June 25, 2007. Savion Glover, Invitations to a Dancer / Joyce Theater, NYC / June 19 – July 14, 2007 Savion Glover. Photo by NiNA. The master tapper Savion Glover may have been cool providing the feet motion-captured for the irresistible dancing penguin Mumble in […]
Ballet Fans Bid Farewell to Dancers Ferri, Nichols
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on June 19, 2007. June 19 (Bloomberg) — The New York City Ballet’s sublimely cool Kyra Nichols and American Ballet Theater’s tempestuous Alessandra Ferri have little in common except the fact that, to the sorrow of their countless admirers, both ballerinas are retiring this […]
Wheeldon’s `Nightingale’ has Blood but Lacks Guts
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on June 11, 2007. June 11 (Bloomberg) — To the sound of birdsong, Wendy Whelan transforms herself from ballerina to magical avian creature. In a sienna-streaked tunic suggesting feathers, she accents the familiar curved-arm movements of classical dance with quick, sharp angles. Her head […]