Jacob's Pillow opens its season with a Gala performance. It was only when I was leaving the Jacob’s Pillow Gala that I started to consider this dance establishment’s 85th anniversary celebration in terms of transformation and the breaking of boundaries. It could have rained and didn’t, but there were umbrellas-in-waiting in the bags we were given, also pens (which could come in handy for … [Read more...]
Artifacts Reinvented
Sally Silvers' three new works at Roulette, June 15 through 17. I love pondering the palimpsest that is New York City. Sometimes when a building’s skeleton is all that’s left, you lay what you know of its past over its present. The eye-level, horizontal strip of a Bleecker Street window that once displayed antique toys has vanished under the big-deal plate glass that’s there now, fronting … [Read more...]
Circles of Life
Tamar Rogoff's Grand Rounds at La MaMa, April 27 through May 14. Choreographer Tamar Rogoff grew up in the 1950s reading Helen Wells’ mystery novels about a nurse named Cherry Ames, who’d risk the wrath of the doctors she served by resourcefully breaking the rules in order to save a patient’s life, if no one else was around. From Cherry Ames, Student Nurse (1943), Nurse Ames went on being … [Read more...]
New York City Ballet premieres a New Ratmansky Work
New York City Ballet’s 2017 Spring Gala is a testament to the acumen of the company’s supporters. Beautifully dressed people are provided with champagne in advance of the performance and dinner after it, but no speeches this time, no films, and no intermissions. And after those assembled have watched Peter Martins’ Jeu de Cartes, the pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain, and … [Read more...]
Pushing the Past Forward
The Limón Dance Company performs at the Joyce Theater, May 2 through 7. José Limón might have been a fine architect had he chosen that profession instead of dance. Beginning his career in the company led by Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, he inherited some of their principles of movement and, shortly, a mentor: Humphrey herself. And during the latter part of his career, when he had a … [Read more...]
So this Horse Came from India. . .
A production of From the Horse's Mouth celebrates Indian dance at New York's 14th Street Y. Next year, From the Horse’s Mouth will celebrate its twentieth anniversary. Since its debut at the Joyce Soho, over a thousand people connected with dance (twenty or more at a time) have performed in this peripatetic structured improvisation, conceived and directed by Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham. … [Read more...]
Seeing the World Upside Down
doug elkins choreography, etc. performs in Montclair State University's Peak Performances series. All that I’ve seen on the campus of Montclair State University until now is what I happen on while walking between the Alexander Kasser Theater and the Au Bon Pain. I have also, on a warm evening, sat in the miniature stone equivalent of a Greek theater where I-don’t-know-what takes place and … [Read more...]
Combining Cultures
This year, Ballet Hispanico will celebrate its 47th anniversary. I know, I know. In the performing-arts world, we only go all out for a year that ends in zero or five. But what’s immodest about a company being proud of its achievements in other years? Especially since the modestly scaled school and company that Tina Ramirez founded in 1970 has extended its dedication to dance and Hispanic culture … [Read more...]
Cunningham Redivivus
Compagnie CNDC Angers - Robert Swinston bring three dances by Merce Cunningham to New York. Merce Cunningham didn’t want us to try to find stories in his dances. We obeyed. But dance can hint at the essential stories that lie deep under narratives that deal with, say, characters falling in love with the wrong person or being transformed into swans. Cunningham presented us with quiet … [Read more...]
Celebrating Thirty Years, Moving On
Doug Varone and Dancers shows old and new works at the BAM Harvey Theater. Doug Varone and Dancers is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and during the past three decades, Varone has also choreographed dances for other companies, as well as directing and choreographing operas. Knowing that about him, you might expect that his style is not a static one, and you would be correct. In … [Read more...]