The Stephen Petronio Company performs new and historic works. It has long been something of a tradition that so-called modern dancers forge their own styles, train those who perform their works, and, inevitably, appear as a central power onstage. However, New Yorkers attending Paul Taylor’s recent American Modern Dance season were treated to guest artists performing works by Isadora Duncan … [Read more...]
Archives for 2018
Paul Taylor and His Cohort
Paul Taylor American Modern Dance at Lincoln Center through March 25th. I think I finally got it straight: Paul Taylor American Modern Dance is a presenting organization and the Paul Taylor Dance Company is one of the organizations it presents and for which it commissions new work. (There. That wasn’t hard, was it?) During its ongoing season at Lincoln Center’s former New York State … [Read more...]
Meredith Monk’s Journey
Meredith Monk's Cellular Songs at the BAM Harvey Theater, March 14 through 18. When I began to search the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s website for images of Meredith Monk’s Cellular Songs, I went astray. I couldn’t categorize the work the way the site expected me to. If I clicked on “theater,” I couldn’t also click on “music.” When, with help, I found the photographs I sought, “theater,” … [Read more...]
Taylor Made
Paul Taylor American Modern Dance at Lincoln Center, March 6 through 25. When Paul Taylor’s Roses premiered in 1985, fake petals drifted down onto the City Center stage just before the lights went out on his sweet-tempered choreography. No such sprinkling occurred on the second evening of Paul Taylor American Modern Dance’s 2018 three-week season at the former New York State Theater. Would … [Read more...]
Making Things Together
The Bebe Miller Company and Susan Rethorst share their processes and a program at New York Live Arts. The Making Room isn’t a dance, it’s a project devised by Bebe Miller that she and fellow choreographer Susan Rethorst have been working on for over a year via conversations both virtual and actual, plus convenings and rehearsals with their collaborating dancers wherever they could find … [Read more...]
The Ground as Partner, as Enemy
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca at the Joyce Theater through February 25th. Seeing Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca at the Joyce Theater isn’t quite the same as viewing one of the group’s performances at the sweaty little Cherry Lane Theater, where it used to hold its weeks-long seasons. And artistic director Martin Santangelo premiered his 2016 La Ronde at Joe’s Pub. That’s not to … [Read more...]
Three Women Meet and Make a World
Dana Reitz premieres Latitude at New York Live Arts “Exquisite.” That was what a colleague whispered to me as he emerged from New York Live Arts’ theater into the lobby. Maybe he spoke quietly because Dana Reitz’s trio, Latitude (the third and last presentation of the annual LUMBERYARD in the City festival), had attuned us to every nuance of sound and how it impinges on silence. That single … [Read more...]
The New York City Ballet Looks to Its Future
21st-century works in The New York City Ballet's Winter season (January 23-March 4) A subtle artistic schism exists for dancers in the New York City Ballet. None of them knew its co-founder Balanchine. They hadn’t taken his classes; they hadn’t watched him choreograph new ballets or lent him their bodies to use as inspiration and building blocks. If they experienced ballets by his later … [Read more...]
A Japanese Company Brings a Forest to New York
Kei Takei's Moving Earth Orient Sphere performs at New York Live Arts, January 25-27. In 1969, New Yorkers hadn’t seen anything resembling the dances Kei Takei was beginning to make. Like the choreographers who’d been associated with Judson Church earlier in the 1960s (Yvonne Rainer, David Gordon, Steve Paxton et al), she broke the implicit rules of western dance. But in her hands, … [Read more...]
What Makes a Body Seem New?
The Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process series presents two works by Jodi Melnick on January 14th and 15th. I didn’t try to count the gestures in One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures, a 2012 collaboration between Trisha Brown and Jodi Melnick. Nor did I think about the “one” of the title while Melnick was dancing alone on the small stage of the Guggenheim Museum’s Peter B. Sharp Theater … [Read more...]