Wendy Whelan, Brian Brooks, and Brooklyn Rider at Jacob's Pillow, July 7-31 “Adventuress” isn’t a word I’d use to describe the marvelous dancer Wendy Whelan. Not because it’s a politically incorrect term in today’s porous and egalitarian vision of gender, but because it conjures up a glamorous, unprincipled woman using her charms in order to fleece men of their money or marry them. No, … [Read more...]
Archives for 2016
From Chicago to Massachusetts
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago appears at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. I first saw Crystal Pite’s choreography by in 2008, when Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (sadly defunct) commissioned her Ten Duets on a Theme of Struggle (performed in rotation by five dancers). The most recent Pite work I wrote about was her 2015 Polaris, one of four works in Sadlers Wells London’s Lincoln Center … [Read more...]
Dancing With Your Selves
Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer present the New York premieres of two works. One source of theater’s magic lies in the interplay between what’s real and what’s not. An actor who is not actually the “Tom” of the play bids his wife “Susan” goodbye and walks out the door. It looks like a real door, but there’s no street out there, only dressing rooms and backstage equipment. We accept that a … [Read more...]
Twyla Tharp: Past, Present, Future
Twyla Tharp presents one new creation and two golden oldies at the Joyce. Watching Reed Tankersley perform the long opening solo in Twyla Tharp’s 1980 Brahms Paganini confirmed my sense that Tharp considers dancers as heroes. In this work, which closes the program at the Joyce Theater billed as “Twyla Tharp and Three Dances,” Tankersley, alone onstage, performs Book I (a theme and fourteen … [Read more...]
The Road to Dancer Hell
The American Dance Institute presents Jack Ferver's I Want You To Want Me. What is this? The Kitchen looks different. Mirrors line the back wall and angle to either side. Barres are stretched along them, ready for a ballet class. We can look at ourselves, the reflected spectators—the innocent and the not-so-innocent—obedient and ready to contemplate, well. . .Hell (aka Jack Ferver’s I Want … [Read more...]
Dancers and Puppets Rebirth the World
Fantasque by John Heginbotham and Amy Trompetter opens Bard Summerscape 2016. The 2016 season of Bard Summerscape (July 1 to August 14) is devoted to the opera composer Giacomo Puccini. Hosted by the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, the concerts, lectures, panels, films and performances that comprise “Puccini and His World” pop up at various sites on the … [Read more...]
Enter The Men
10 Hairy Legs presents work by four choreographers at New York Live Arts. There’s a problem. Well, not much of one. Randy James gave the name 10 Hairy Legs to the all-male company he founded in 2012 . I counted twelve legs (and won’t debate the hairiness quotient). Obviously, I don’t recommend a name change, but I bring it up because I wish that the program I saw at New York Live Arts … [Read more...]
Connecting and Levering
The Bereishit Dance Company from South Korea performs at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. I have long been an admirer of Korean traditional dance. When singer Seo-hee Lee walked into Jacob’s Pillow’s Doris Duke Studio Theater, she was wearing a billowing white and pink hanbok. Dong-sik Lim and Sung-gun Park, the other two musicians preparing to accompany Seoul’s Bereishit Dance Company’s … [Read more...]
Changing Color
Susan Marshall, Jason Treuting, and Suzanne Bocanegra explore our perception of color. Is this the coolest ever lecture on color theory? Yes and no. It’s also a piece of theater created and performed at the Kitchen (June 23-25) by choreographer Susan Marshall, composer Jacob Treuting, and visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra. However, after seeing their Chromatic and its references to Bauhaus … [Read more...]
Serious Subjects, Powerful Dancing
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Lincoln Center season (6/8-19) What’s going on here? I exit onto the Lincoln Center Plaza after watching “21st Century Voices” one of the five programs that make up the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s season at the former New York State Theater. Although I’ve seen plenty of spiritual aspiration and yearning toward the light, I haven’t noticed many … [Read more...]