Three-quarters of a year ago, struck by an image, I wrote about a dancer whose history was essentially unknown. Here is the image– Weegee Ballerina Marina Franca in her peacock costume, April 18, 1941 Gelatin silver print © Weegee / International Center of Photography –and here is the essay. A brief passage in it now […]
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Jasperse Explores Naked Facts of Aging and Dancing
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on April 5, 2007. April 5 (Bloomberg) — The three dancers in “Becky, Jodi and John” are simply playing themselves. Becky is Becky Hilton; Jodi is Jodi Melnick. Both women have been important figures in groundbreaking dance — Hilton, an earth-mother type, chiefly with […]
ZviDance Toasts Pioneer With Sexiness, Melodrama
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on March 15, 2007. March 15 (Bloomberg) — It’s nearly impossible to describe the work of Zvi Gotheiner — an Israeli choreographer based in New York for two decades — without resorting to the word “lush.” “Earthy” and “robust” leap to mind as well. […]
Paul Taylor Turns `Loss’ to Vivid Scenes of Grief
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on March 5, 2007. March 5 (Bloomberg) — Intense and wiry, Paul Taylor’s senior dancer, Lisa Viola, emerges from a circling ensemble dressed in white Sunday-best practice clothes for a solo of strange stymied gestures. She flings herself into backbends as if turning herself […]
Forsythe Brings Mideast Violence to Modern Dance Stage at BAM
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on March 1, 2007. March 1 (Bloomberg) — A woman with a blunt peasant’s face steps out from a raggedy, 13-dancer line-up. “This is `Composition Number 1,’ in which my son was arrested,” she announces before leaving the stage. Then all hell breaks loose. […]
Lustful Boys Taunt Death in `Venice’; Armitage Honors Ligeti
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on February 9, 2007. Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — At the edge of the sea, a middle-aged man, taut with repression, watches a group of boys carelessly tossing a beach ball. He singles out a blond youth, godlike among them. They dance an ingeniously constructed […]
Robbins’s Love Demon Returns in City Ballet Revival of `Dybbuk’
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on February 5, 2007. Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) — Seven devout young men from a long-ago shtetl dance, arms linked, creating an impenetrable wall with their black-clad bodies. Their movement is both angular and sinuous, mirroring Leonard Bernstein’s score, which couples modern dissonance with undulating […]
Enough
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2006 issue (Vol. 15, No. 2) of Dance Now. Dance fans are forever complaining about dancing stars who refuse to recognise when the time has come to call it quits and retire from the stage. Two of the last century’s ballet divinities, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, continued […]
Mark Morris Unveils New Dance at His Intimate Brooklyn Studio
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on January 18, 2007. Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — From every one of the 140 seats in the black-box theater at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, you’re close enough to see the performers’ muscles flexing, hear their footfalls, and feel in your own […]
Chuma’s Crazy-Quilt Choreography Returns to Chelsea: N.Y. Dance
This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on January 15, 2007. Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — “I love everything about the theater,” Yoshiko Chuma says at a midday rehearsal of “A Page Out of Order: M,” which begins a five-day run tomorrow at Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea. Known for her maverick […]