American Ballet Theatre / Metropolitan Opera House, NYC / October 20 – November 7, 2004 Le Spectre de la Rose is a nine-minute ballet choreographed by Michel Fokine in 1911 for Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina. It is set to Carl Maria von Weber’s Invitation to the Dance and based on a poem by Gautier […]
NOVELTY
American Ballet Theatre / City Center, NYC / October 20 – November 7, 2004 It doesn’t matter how many classics a ballet company harbors in its repertory. If it doesn’t have new work to show, it’s dead in the water when it comes to ticket sales. The audience, so goes the theory, lusts for the […]
“Uqbartango”
Pablo Pugliese, born into a family of tango pros, entertains the notion that the soul of the genre can be expressed by augmenting its vocabulary with modern dance and ballet. Village Voice 10/19/04
“Mountain View Estates”
Kourtney Rutherford, whose résumé adds three years in construction work to familiar dance and drama credits, spins a goofy, macabre tale in a half-built tract house set. Village Voice 10/19/04
Octavia Cup Dance Theatre
Laura Ward’s new, ambitious, bilingually titled Enredaderas: Entanglemnts opts for excess at every turn. Village Voice 10/19/04
PULLING STRINGS
Basil Twist: Symphonie Fantastique / Dodger Stages, NYC / ongoingMark Dendy: choreography for Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte / Metropolitan Opera House, NYC / October 8, 11, 15, 18, and 21, 2004; April 5, 13, 16, 20, and 23, 2005 The idea of Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique is magical: You’re sitting in this small neo-Bauhaus black-box theater—one […]
Dancenow/NYC
Dusan Tynek stood out for his skill at implying feelings through movement. Village Voice 10/12/04
ELEMENTS OF STYLE
Johannes Wieland / Diane von Furstenberg the Theatre, NYC / October 7-10, 2004 Johannes Wieland opened his recent concert with his 2002 Parietal Region, which, for the uninitiated, might serve neatly as Wieland 101. As this piece reveals, the choreographer, whose stern aesthetic may be related to the Bauhaus movement in his native Germany, favors […]
BODY LANGUAGE
Molissa Fenley and Dancers / The Kitchen, NYC / September 29 – October 9, 2004 More than a quarter-century after Molissa Fenley first appeared on the postmodern dance scene, an oddity in her way of moving—apparent throughout the cycles of solos and group works she’s choreographed—remains a distinct personal signature. She holds her hands sharply […]
CARRYING ON
Limón Dance Company / Joyce Theater, NYC / September 21 – October 3, 2004 The Limón Dance Company is unabashedly old-fashioned. Adhering to the principles of its founder, José Limón, and his mentor, Doris Humphrey, it acquires new works that match its existing repertory—well-made dances on humanistic themes, the prevailing modern dance mode until things […]