Archives for April 2007

Here are two reviews of the Nothing Festival that you will not find in the papers. Tonya Plank--who should win a prize, I think, for Most Engaged Layperson (not a choreographer, not a professional dancer, not a paid critic, just a lucid thinker and vibrant audience member)--provides links to most of the Nothing Festival responses so far and discusses the dances that appealed to her on her blog, … [Read more...]

Ed. note: Foot contributor Eva Yaa Asantewaa sent me this wonderful reflection on the Nothing Festival at DTW from her blog, infinitebody.blogspot.com, to continue the talk on Foot that began here and went here and here and here. I also received an interesting response a few days ago from a curator who was at the panel on Saturday; I'm waiting to hear back from him about some details (yoohoo!). … [Read more...]

Hi Apollinaire, So Doug and I went to The Nothing Festival performance and seminar on Saturday, and I found it really interesting, but frustrating. [Ed. note: See more discussion of the Nothing Festival here and here.] First, I loved Dean Moss and all that he had to say. I think his remark about "Dancing With the Stars" was really important and it greatly annoys me, to put it mildly, when people … [Read more...]

Tonight's the last night. If you live in or around New York, treat yourself. With the Kitchen's commitment to rock-bottom ticket prices, admission is only 10 bucks. "Open" is second on a double bill with Kimberly Bartosik's "Ecsteriority1," which for me was neither here nor there, but not excruciating. The dancers were engaging, anyway. About "Open": Jennifer Allen offers not what childhood looks … [Read more...]

This just in from Doug Fox, who's hard at work on his web site, greatdance.com, figuring out alternative ways to fund dance. He suggests many nifty alternatives there. Hi Apollinaire, I enjoyed the posts about the Nothing Festival. I'm going to Dance Theater Workshop [in New York] tomorrow night for talk and performance. Why does everybody assume there are no alternatives to financing new dance … [Read more...]

A couple of responses this morning on yesterday's post on the Nothing Festival at Dance Theater Workshop: Jessica Fogel recalls Daniel Nagrin's solution to the grantwriting conundrum and Nothing fest curator Tere O'Connor exclaims over how jaded we are. From Jessica Fogel, who teaches dance at the University of Michigan: We just had Daniel Nagrin here in Ann Arbor for a three-day residency, and in … [Read more...]

This just in from Foot's Eva Yaa Asantewaa: Much Ado about Something Curator and artiste provocateur Tere O'Connor has given the City That Always Seems to Need One More Dance Festival a new festival in which choreographers start off with nothing--no concept, no music, no whatever--and come up with...something. (Funny, I thought that was the way it usually worked. In creativity, isn't there always … [Read more...]

From Foot's Eva Yaa Asantewaa: Serious fans of serious dance, you've paid your taxes and your dues, and now it's time for some fun. Try [bjm_danse]--formerly, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal--at the Joyce Theater now through Sunday, April 22. Louis Robitaille's troupe is showing a couple of New York premieres by choreographers Rodrigo Pederneiras (from Brazil's Grupo Corpo) and Aszure Barton that go … [Read more...]

Before the whole Times dance critic hullabalooza on Foot in Mouth, we were having a polite discussion about the ballet corps. One reason to stress the impersonality of Balanchine's corps, I said, was that we live in an age that can't remember what impersonality is worth: With our reality TV- and memoir-craziness, the prevalent notion [is] that the closer one gets to the personal, the closer one … [Read more...]

Foot contributor Eva Yaa Asantewaa will still be contributing here, but she also now has a blog of her own, InfiniteBody. Check it out. Recent postings include a review on Paco Pena's flamenco show at Town Hall this weekend and an approving assessment of the debut performance this Sunday of Alastair Macaulay, new head dance critic at the Times. … [Read more...]