David Hallberg, dancing with American Ballet Theatre / City Center, NYC / October 19 – November 6 When I first got addicted to ballet, type casting prevailed. The men naturally selected to play Princes (Swan Lake’s Siegfried, Giselle’s Albrecht) were as tall, handsome, and harmoniously proportioned creatures as a company’s roster could provide, their […]
“Ballets Russes”
This splendid documentary film shows how the Ballets Russes evolved into a pair of rival companies that crisscrossed America, seducing both cultural innocents and sophisticates with glamour, beauty, and transcendence. Village Voice 10/18/05
Juilliard Dance Ensemble
Abetted by the hypnotic effect of Steve Reich’s Drumming, Eliot Feld’s Sir Isaac’s Apples seems to offer a God’s-eye view of a human colony persevering in a faraway landscape. Village Voice 10/14/05
Kim Whittam & Company; Compagnia Danza Francesca Selva
Whittam’s lithe, upbeat dancers look vastly at ease in movement that’s both slinky and bubbly, laced with the warmth and trust necessary to its contact improv tactics; Selva’s Just Walking looks like it wants to be “about” something–postmodern anomie, the vicissitudes of love, Tuscan traditions–but it never makes clear just what. Village Voice 9/19/05
Glen Rumsey Dance Project
The dancers serve as mere mannequins for ravishing, bizarre outfits featuring transparent plastics, floating gauze, crimson in a dozen dramatic guises, and pearly balloons. Village Voice 9/19/05
MY OTHER LIFE
My most recent book for children, WISHES FOR YOU, with pictures by the celebrated Danish illustrator Henri Sorensen, has just been issued by HarperCollins Children’s Books in a paperback edition. It makes a wonderful present for very young children–and for their parents, grandparents, and other well-wishers. The book can be ordered, in either hardcover or […]
La Compagnie de l’Entorse; Regina Nejman
Raw depictions of escalating hysteria from La Compagnie de l’Entorse depend almost entirely on Charlotte Schioler’s gift for expressionist dance; The Velocity of Things is proof that postmodern tactics can benefit from an infusion of the color, pulse, and spirit Regina Nejman absorbed in her native Brazil. Village Voice 8/23/05
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
A 22-member crew of personable, versatile performers, accomplished in a mix of ballet, modern, and jazz modes, who are out to please without begging. Village Voice 8/15/05
RESURRECTIONS
Bolshoi Ballet / Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NYC / July 18-30, 2005 Of the four program-length productions the Bolshoi Ballet brought to New York, only Don Quixote, discussed in my Tilting At Windmills, sports choreography that you might term traditional—stretches in which you can recognize Marius Petipa’s diamond-brilliant designs. I suppose you might call […]
Tom Pearson; Joyce SoHo Presents
The movement of “Reel”–now angular and thrusting against the air, now sinuously splayed against the ground–looked as if it might belong to an ancient tribal culture with ties to various postmodern nations (Tom Pearson); With no obvious structure and only the smallest hints of message, Breezy Berryman’s “Widow’s Walk” satisfied simply through the precision, vitality, […]