Keely Garfield Dance premieres Wow at St. Mark's Church (a Danspace Project presentation). I’m pretty sure that Keely Garfield does what most of us do: mop the floor, rustle up some dinner, move close to the other person in the bed, tell the kids what they can do and what they shouldn’t do. Garfield, however, is a yoga teacher and a Donna Karan/Urban Zen Integrative Therapist (working in … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2014
Fire and Ice: Both Burn
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at New York's City Center. The members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater have always been able to do practically anything a choreographer might ask of them: thrust their legs astonishingly high, spin like tops, act sassy or sexy, and dance with an ardor that burns across the footlights. But it’s always exciting to see how they … [Read more...]
Life Under the Dome
Doug Varone and Dancers premieres two works at the Joyce Theater. What strikes me first about Doug Varone’s new Dome is the amount of stillness in it. This most musical of choreographers is at home with maelstroms. In his 2004 Castles, which opened his company’s program at the Joyce Theater, architectural and social structures form and dissolve and re-form like elaborate sand castles washed … [Read more...]
What Do You Mean By “Meaning?”
Neil Greenberg premieres This at New York Live Arts. Choreographer Neil Greenberg doesn’t like the word “about,” as in, “What is this dance about?” Having been a member of Merce Cunningham’s company between 1979 and 1986 and having read Susan Sontag’s influential 1966 Against Interpretation, he would prefer we not scramble to uncover “meaning” while watching what he puts onstage. The title … [Read more...]
Celebrating 50 Years of Artistry
Meredith Monk's new On Behalf of Nature at the BAM Harvey. “I work in between the cracks, where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theater becomes cinema.” Meredith Monk said that in 1981. And although many of us knew her first as a startlingly original downtown 1960s choreographer, she has since composed music that interweaves various modes of performance and … [Read more...]