I just want to back you up re Bourne's corps. He took the deep material of "Swan Lake's" adolescent hysteria -- the insecurities that frequent hormonal surges and sudden growths made erupt in all of us at that stage when our bodies were changing so fast -- and put them into his corps of swans. The "traditional" "Swan Lake" makes poetic fiction, displaced into a picturesque mode, out of fears … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2007
Mob Mentality
Apollinaire writes: The English choreographer Matthew Bourne is in town through the end of the month with his latest production, "Edward Scissorhands." Writing a profile on him, I remembered how terrifying the corps in his "Swan Lake" was. The corps in the 19th century "Swan Lake" is part swan, part woman: a metaphor being made before our eyes. Bourne's corps is a mob. He returns us to what a … [Read more...]
GO: Tamango’s Urban Tap
[When Foot contributors see something that excites us so much, we can't stand the possibility that you might miss it, we'll post a short plug. Apollinaire has done only a few so far. This one is from Eva Yaa Asantewaa and continues on her Web site. DO click!] You have to see Tamango. You simply have to. The way you have to see Paris. Or Stonehenge. Or the Niagara Falls. And if you hurry, you can … [Read more...]
Apollinaire: All–or Kinda–Quiet on the Foot Front
In case you were wondering whether there is any rhyme or reason to when things get posted--the answer is, Not really. In my case, the rhythm depends on my other, paying work--both for Newsday and elsewhere. When I'm up to my eyeballs elsewhere, there's less of me here. That said, I can tell you this (what a paragraph of thises and thats and heres and theres!--those wonderful pointing words that … [Read more...]
New York choreographer Clare Byrne: Sticking it out
This email just in: Whether sexism is a more pervasive presence in the New York dance community than in other places, I don't have experience to say. But I can say New Yorkers experience it -- to greater or lesser degrees, depending on our age, gender, color, size, creative inclinations, positionings -- and it affects our input and output. So then we must decide what to do about it, if anything, … [Read more...]
The beat goes on…
.... Unfortunately. So now an arts blogger on the other side of the pond, Judith Flanders, has jumped into the fray. I haven't said much about the latest blog additions to the "conversation" about the hire of Alastair Macaulay to the head dance post at the New York Times--SF Chronicle dance critic Rachel Howard on her blog and now this--because I mainly don't think they warrant response: It's not … [Read more...]