Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener collaborate on a video/live performance. So what do you do if you meet a dancer who’s twice your size in every way, and he (or she) reaches out a hand to you? Well you could take off the 3-D viewing glasses that you were given as you entered BAM Harvey to see Tesseract. Or you could just sit back and ponder the enigmas of the virtual stage … [Read more...]
Archives for 2017
Seems Like It Was Just Yesterday. . .
Big Dance Theater premieres a new work at the BAM Harvey, November 14 through 18. I’d like to browse Annie-B Parson’s book shelves. What will she read to inspire the next dance theater piece that she choreographs for Big Dance Theater and, with Paul Lazar, directs? She slides together two or more disparate texts together and makes them strike sparks off each other. Maybe it’s not just her … [Read more...]
Cool Heat
Garth Fagan Dance comes from Rochester to the Joyce Theater, November 7 through 12. This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to start a review of Garth Fagan Dance by praising the dancers. It’s not, however, really fair. They’ve been intensively trained by Fagan at his school up in Rochester, New York, and they’re dancing either his choreography or that of company member Norwood Pennewell (now … [Read more...]
Working Together in Love and in Hate
David Dorfman Dance at BAM Harvey Theater, November 8-11. I came home Wednesday night wanting to crawl into bed with David Dorfman’s Aroundtown, snuggle up to it, and have better dreams. You understand, of course, that I don’t mean that literally; six dancers, four musicians, plus Dorfman and his wife (guest performer Lisa Race) wouldn’t fit in my bed. But the hour-long piece that I’d seen … [Read more...]
Ballet Up Close and Personal
New York Theatre Ballet's Legends and Visionaries series at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church. The cover photo for New York Theatre Ballet’s season at Danspace Saint Mark’s does not show any of the company’s fine performers. Instead it bears a photo of artistic director Diana Byer and David Vaughan, the dance historian, critic, lecturer, and performer widely known as the author of … [Read more...]
The Red Shoes Redux
Matthew Bourne/New Adventures brings the 1948 movie, The Red Shoes, to the stage. In 1953-54, when Britain’s Sadlers Wells Ballet had not yet become the Royal Ballet, and the company was performing in New York’s old Metropolitan Opera House in the West 30s, ballet lovers formed lines for standing-room tickets early in the morning. The excitement had, in part, been kindled by Michael Powell … [Read more...]
The Unslaked Fires of Love
The White Light Festival presents Layla and Majnun, directed and choreographed by Mark Morris. How many poets have compared love to a flame and passion to a consuming fire— love that can obsess you, drive you mad? In the ancient tale of Layla and Majnun, the hero was born with another name; “majnun” labels him as one losing his mind over love for Layla, and, ironically it is that madness … [Read more...]
Tea for Three? Take a Seat
Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, and Yvonne Rainer get together at Saint Mark's Church. “It is better to have loved and lost than to have put linoleum on your living room floor.” Yvonne Rainer read that aloud during her 2016 The Concept of Dust: Continuous Project— Altered Annually. And she read it again from one of the sheets of paper taped to the pillars in Saint Mark’s Church during Danspace … [Read more...]
American Ballet Theatre Throws a Party
ABT presents new and recent ballets at Lincoln Center through October 29th. As diverse and original as Alexei Ratmansky’s ballets are, it’s tempting to probe for artistic sources that may have nourished them. His Russian roots include his experiences as a dancer in the Kirov Ballet and as the Bolshoi Ballet’s artistic director. His years as a member of the Royal Danish Ballet count too. Few … [Read more...]
Dark Matters from Finland
Tero Saarinen Company performs at the Joyce Theater. Who are these men? I can tell you their names: Ima Iduozee, Leo Kirjonen, Mikko Lampinen, Jarkko Lehmus, David Scarantino, Eero Vesterinen, Heikki Vienola (have you guessed that almost all of them are Finnish?). However, seeing them onstage at the Joyce Theater in Morphed (2014) by the fascinating choreographer Tero Saarinen, you would … [Read more...]