Merce Cunningham Dance Company / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, New York City / October 14-18, 2003 Dancing usually hangs out with music—and with good reason. Think rhythmic, structural, and atmospheric support. Think Tchaikovsky-Petipa; think Stravinsky-Balanchine. Merce Cunningham, celebrating the 50th anniversary of his company at BAM this week, was a pioneer in disconnecting the […]
OZU MOVES
Dance fans have just this week between summer festivals and outdoor city performances before the onslaught of the fall season. Time to go to the movies. I favor vintage films and think Yasujiro Ozu tops even Jean Renoir in capturing the subtleties of human feeling. In the past, one usually had to wait for the art houses to hold an Ozu festival. Though it takes a big screen to do this director full justice, some of his best work is now available on DVDs. Try “Late Spring.” I dare you not to cry. Here’s what I wrote about Ozu on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
BACK STORY
This week’s performances of Ballett Frankfurt at the Brooklyn Academy of Music mark a critical stage in the career of William Forsythe, who has shaped the company according to his singular aesthetic. I’ve invited the dance writer Roslyn Sulcas, our New York expert on Forsythe, to provide some background. Here is her report: William Forsythe […]
AFTER THE FACT
Ballett Frankfurt / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, NYC / September 30 – October 5, 2003 I wish I liked William Forsythe’s work more. After Ballett Frankfurt’s opening night at BAM, I felt an inch closer to appreciating it – as the enthusiastic audience, peppered with dance-world celebrities, clearly did. But no more than an […]
THE DANES AT HOME
Royal Danish Ballet / Royal Theatre, Copenhagen / September 20 & 21, 2003 Copenhagen Nearly two centuries after August Bournonville’s birth, the ballets of this peerless Romantic-era choreographer and the unique style in which they are danced still define the profile of the Royal Danish Ballet. The Bournonville heritage calls for dancing that is both […]
Dancenow/NYC; Treaders in the Snow: “Seraphita”
Where is it written that dancing requires a clear, well-lighted space? (Dancenow/NYC); The Treaders, a female trio of New York-based dancer-choreographers born and initially trained in Japan . . . are all expert performers in the hypersensitive vein that reminds you of creatures sensing their world through quivering antennae. (Treaders in the Snow) Village Voice […]
SEATING ARRANGEMENT
While I’m in Denmark, you can be too. . . . Though it centers on dancing, SEEING THINGS means to look at other food for the eye as well. Here’s some that’s available at a mere click: http://www.kunstindustrimuseet.dk/kim.htm. From the menu in the left hand column, choose “Design after 1900,” then scroll down and click […]
DARK DAYS
Summer used to be the season of doldrums in the dance world. Not so anymore on the New York dance scene, though this is clearly contrary to nature. We need a rest before the jam-packed fall season. We need a laid back stretch of time in which we watch dancing, if at all, in the […]
Pilar Rioja
At 70, the Spanish dancer Pilar Rioja has a figure women half her age might envy and, more important, a carriage that comes from decades of embodying pride in all its guises: joyous, disdainful, enraged, malevolent, erotic, and undaunted by grief. Village Voice 08/27/03
Young, Dressed Up, And Dancing
This article originally appeared in Tutu Revue. Years and years ago, I asked Bill Carter — a demi-caractère dancer with American Ballet Theatre, a flamenco dancer manqué, and one of the most soulful artists I’ve ever known — if his vocation had already been evident in his childhood. “Oh, yes,” he reminisced, “I was always […]