SEEING THINGS invited dancers and dance aficionados (as well as mere pedestrians) to respond to this question: Some would say that dancing is the cruelest profession, all but guaranteeing grueling work, physical pain, poverty, and heartbreak. Yet the field has always been rich in aspirants willing to dedicate their lives to the art. Why? MINDY […]
Walkaround Time: Basic Steps In Mark Morris’s “L’Allegro”
Viewers who noticed the importance of walking in the recent performances of Mark Morris’s “Mozart Dances”–here, most noticeably, a firm, heel-first stride–may recall that the tread is frequently a central element in Morris’s choreography. In an essay on the choreographer’s fertile masterwork, “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato,” this simple act is the one I singled out.
JUST ASKING
Some would say that dancing is the cruelest profession, all but guaranteeing grueling work, physical pain, poverty, and heartbreak. Yet the field has always been rich in aspirants willing to dedicate their lives to the art. Why? Dancers and dance aficionados (as well as mere pedestrians) are invited to respond. If we gather enough eloquence, […]
Crowning Glory: Hair & Hats Centerstage
Feminist doctrine, eager to dissuade us from giving over much attention to millinery and hairdos, cautions that what goes on inside a woman’s head is far more significant than what’s on it. A pair of feisty, engaging productions recently playing New York — Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s “HairStories” and Regina Taylor’s “Crowns,” with choreography by […]
GOING FOR BROKE
Dance Theatre of Harlem / New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC / July 8-13, 2003 Ballet companies operate on the verge of insolvency. That’s a given. They depend on government support (generous abroad, but traditionally meager here in the States) and private generosity—from corporations and well-heeled, arts-minded individuals. They also depend on box office […]
Nancy “Bannon: “It’s a Cruel, Cruel Summer”; Henning Rübsam’s Sensedance
Nightswimming casts Limón veteran Nina Watt as-of all things-a tree viciously cut down. [The] exquisitely calibrated choreography details the disruption of the thrumming systems that constitute botanical life, while Watt embodies a mute consciousness of the fatal attack-a kind of biological shock and grief-that offered profound ramifications. (Bannon) [The] ambitious new Garden . . . […]
School of American Ballet 39th Annual Workshop
[Nikolaj] Hübbe managed to instill in his protégés a command of the [Bournonville] choreography’s unique charms: the calm upper body riding the fleet action of the feet; the space-grabbing leaps with their invisible preparations and pillow-soft landings; the maverick timing; and, no less important, the pervading sense of unquenchable joy. Village Voice 06/25/03
Chamber Dance Project; Zig Zag Ballet
Classical ballet, with its appetite for space and grandeur, calls for opera-house scale. Does that make the concept of chamber ballet a contradiction in terms? Two mini-troupes at the Kaye Playhouse in May argued persuasively that intimacy has its own charms. Village Voice 06/18/03
Flesh: “Talk to Her”– Almodovar’s Anatomy of Women
The gaudy, bizarre twists and turns of the film’s plot, influenced perhaps by the magic realism of the Latin American novelists Borges and Garcia Marquez, are extravagant even for this film maker, who thrives on flamboyant, unlikely extremes. But there’s a sober, well reasoned, and calmly paced subtext operating here too, and it has a […]
Johannes Wieland
Since he relocated to New York three years ago, the German-born Johannes Wieland . . . has developed a singular, striking body of work. Concise and abstract, though hinting at mood, situation, and relationships, his dances are visually handsome in a stern Bauhaus style. Their movement is tightly controlled, with ferocious outbursts that read as […]