American Ballet Theatre premieres Alexei Ratmansky's The Tempest and revives Twyla Tharp's Bach Partita. Had Shakespeare happened upon American Ballet Theater’s production of Alexei Ratmansky’s The Tempest, he might have recognized the characters of his eponymous play, but been bewildered by the absence of words—wondering how on earth audiences in this vast Lincoln Center theater could … [Read more...]
Archives for 2013
How Comfortable Are You?
Anneke Hansen Dance performs a new work at the Martha Graham Studio. I pondered the title of Anneke Hansen’s new, full-evening dance before I saw the piece and again as I was walking home from what is now the Martha Graham Studio Theater. she is not a comfortable thing. What can that mean? That being a woman sometimes means not being comfortable with your body? That the way some people … [Read more...]
Two Masters of Improvisation
Two stellar improvisers, Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson, recreate a 2004 work at Dia: Chelsea, October 10-12, 17-19. Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson came to improvisation from different directions. She was a member of Daniel Nagrin’s Workgroup in the 1970s, the same decade during which Paxton developed contact improvisation. While he was investigating the dynamics of body against body, she was … [Read more...]
Life as Disorder, Order as Life
David Dorfman and Brian Brooks present new works in two of BAM's theaters. Choreographer David Dorfman wears his heart on his sleeve. As his newest work Come, and Back Again shows, it’s a very big heart and an imaginatively tailored sleeve. His past works have tackled political, historical, and social topics, but always in warmly personal ways. He’s not shy about friendship as a topic … [Read more...]
Fairy Tales to the Max
Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella and Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty update classic scores and fairytales. When it comes to fairy tales danced out onstage, the borderline between what’s logical in magic worlds and what gives rise to questions is often blurred. The San Francisco Ballet’s production of Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella at Lincoln Center and the British New Adventures … [Read more...]
Light into Darkness, Darkness to Light
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's Rosas and graindelavoix perform in En Atendant and Cesena. I wish that I had been in Avignon in July of 2010. Then I could have seen Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s En Atendant performed in the ancient Cloister of the Celestines, and, a week later, her companion piece, Cesena, in the Court of Honor, an amphitheater attached to the Papal Palace. Both were performed … [Read more...]
Good News from San Francisco
The San Francisco Ballet comes to Lincoln Center with two mixed bills of ballets by seven choreographers. The artistic director of a large ballet company must have headaches rather different from those of a Wall Street trader. His (and such directors tend to be male) “stocks” are highly volatile. Helgi Tomasson, who leads the San Francisco Ballet, can make predictions about how ballets by … [Read more...]
Entering the Forsythean Maze
William Forsythe brings his 2011 Sider to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. When you watch a recent work by William Forsythe, you may find yourself responding to it on two levels. Sitting in the Brooklyn Academy of Music to watch his 2011 Sider (part of BAM’s 2013 Next Wave Festival), you take in what the dancers are doing (say moving large rectangles of corrugated cardboard around), … [Read more...]
Three Men, Their World
Cloud Gate 2 presents On the Road for an all-male trio. Three men from Pavel Zuštiak/Palissimo Company perform Endangered Pieces. Three men in a tub. Three Musketeers; The Three Stooges; Chico, Harpo, and Groucho Marx; the three sailors in Jerome Robbins’s Fancy Free. What can they not get up to in the way of adventure, comradeship, and rivalry? A while back, Cheng Tsun-lung, the associate … [Read more...]
Tides Beyond Ebb and Flow
The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company celebrates its 45th anniversary. Permit me to be fanciful about why Lar Lubovitch chose to devote the first half of the first of two programs his company is presenting at the Joyce to three duets (not a decision I would have recommended). However, Lubovitch founded the group that bears his name 45 years ago, and ever since, he has been showing us how … [Read more...]