Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater / City Center, NYC / December 2, 2009 – January 3, 2010 Beginning with the opening night gala, I visited the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (“The Ailey,” to its friends) many times during its month-long City Center season, which celebrated Judith Jamison’s 20-year tenure as artistic director. Jamison will […]
main
Pacific Northwest Ballet Presents a New Face to New York
Pacific Northwest Ballet / Joyce Theater, NYC / January 5-10, 2010 Pacific Northwest Ballet, based in Seattle, is making its first New York appearance in 13 years with a program of four ballets, three of them new to our town. The more substantial of them are Twyla Tharp’s Opus 111 and Benjamin Millepied’s 3 Movements. […]
Wizards of Oz
Chunky Move: Mortal Engine / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House / December 9-12, 2009 Chunky Move, founded in 1995 and still led by Gideon Obarzanek, comes to us from Down Under, or Oz, as some people call Australia. Chunky Move in Mortal Engine Photo: Julieta Cervantes The troupe’s name indicates its original purpose–to invent dance […]
A Tale of Two Nutcrackers
By Christopher Caines, guest contributor Imagine that Sol Hurok had telephoned the director of a slightly down-at-heel, raggle-taggle, time-traveling vaudeville troupe one day and said, “Parker! Listen: I need a Christmas show! A Nutcracker! Pronto! My Russians canceled. I can get you a couple weeks of one-nights. If you deliver, maybe we can make it […]
You Are What You Wore: Personal Indulgences No.16
It isn’t easy, trying to buy clothes now that the years have beset the body with flaws. You can’t find garments that cover all of them except, of course, a shroud. But not yet. Sometimes I think I should wear one of those Asian or African or Indian outfits that simply swathe you in fabulous […]
Elsewhere
Dear Readers, I will be working in Copenhagen NOV 17 through NOV 30 and not posting on SEEING THINGS until my return. Meanwhile, please continue to send your Comments on the pieces already posted, especially recent reviews and all of the PERSONAL INDULGENCES essays; I will post your Comments as soon as I can. tt
Morphoses Falters
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company / City Center, New York City / October 29 – November 1, 2009 Christopher Wheeldon’s Rhapsody Fantaisie Photo: Erin Baiano Three years ago, when Christopher Wheeldon left the security of his position as Resident Choreographer at the New York City Ballet to form his own small company, Morphoses, his head was full […]
Wiseman’s Lens on Dance
Frederick Wiseman’s La Danse: Le Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris / Film Forum, NYC / November 4-17, 2009 The Paris Opera, as seen in Frederick Wiseman’s La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet Courtesy of Zipporah Films The ticket line at Greenwich Village’s Film Forum November 4-17 for Frederick Wiseman’s latest grand-scale documentary, La Danse: Le […]
ABT’s Experiment
American Ballet Theatre / Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City / October 7-10, 2009 Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center’s main concert venue, lacks an orchestra pit, wing space, and a floor suitable for dancing. Musicians performing there stay put once onstage, limiting their motion to decorous walks to and from their places. Not […]
Decreation Indeed
The Forsythe Company / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House / Brooklyn, NY / October 7-10, 2009 William Forsythe made his name creating ballets with an eye to pushing the art conspicuously forward, as Balanchine had done. Nowadays he makes concoctions that are so hard to appreciate, detractors find them empty, showy, foolish, inexplicable, or all […]