Mark Morris's The Hard Nut at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House. Mark Morris’s The Hard Nut sets the knowing audience at the Brooklyn Academy laughing in ways that most ballets set to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker do not. But I doubt that ballet aficionados in St Petersburg in 1892 found their eyes moisting up either. This revival of Morris’s music-wise, tradition-flouting version melds human … [Read more...]
Four Dances Mingle As One
Bill Young revives his Interleaving at 100 Grand Street, December 9 through 11. I was beginning to write about Bill Young’s revival of his Interleaving after he'd given it a 30-year vacation, when my planned opening struck a chord. Yes, there it was, the start of my 2013 review of A Place in France (a collaboration between Young and his wife, Colleen Thomas): me at 100 Grand Street, … [Read more...]
Dancing Toward a Future
"New Dances: Edition 2016" showcases Juilliard Dance's four classes of students in new choreography. Every December, the Juilliard School presents its dance students in five public performances of works choreographed for them. Lawrence Rhodes, artistic director of the Juilliard Dance Division, commissions a piece for the members of each class in the school’s BFA program, from the freshmen … [Read more...]
Past Hits and a New Dance from Abroad
The Alvin Ailey America Dance Theater at City Center, November 30-December 31. Not long after its beginnings in 1958, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company broke an unspoken rule for modern dance companies. Most of those had a single choreographer, who also starred in almost every work; dancers wishing to perform leading roles had to found their own groups. But Ailey created a repertory ensemble, … [Read more...]
Two for One
Dylan Crossman Dans(c)e shares a program with Caleb Teicher & Company at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center. Gibney Dance’s “DoublePlus” series at its Agnes Varis Dance Center invited three choreographers to each curate a double bill and serve as mentors. You might legitimately wonder what Dylan Crossman, formerly with Merce Cunningham, and tap artists Caleb Teicher and Nathan … [Read more...]
Celebrating Lucinda
Lucinda Childs Dance Company samples fifty-three years of her choreography at the Joyce, November 29-December 11. When I first saw Lucinda Childs’ choreography in the early 1970s, I knew little about Judson Dance Theater, which had presented her as a radical worthy of being linked with Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, et al. Nor was I a seasoned critic. What fascinated me then was her … [Read more...]
The Rise and Fall (?) of a Superhero (or Not)
Faye Driscoll presents Thank You for Coming; Play at BAM Fisher. I could swear that Faye Driscoll has done something to her eyebrows. They seem to slant downward the way they would if she were an Indian dancer portraying one of the nine permanent emotions: “karuna” (compassion or “the pathetic”). Even though the guy I’m sitting next to in BAM Fisher’s front row laughs boisterously at the … [Read more...]
Journey for Two
David Vaughan and Pepper Fajans in Co. Venture at Baryshnikov Arts Center. They make a charming pair: David Vaughan (b. 1924) and Pepper Fajans (b. 1985). I don’t mean “charming” as in, “let’s have them over for dinner” (although that would be nice). I mean that’s how they appear at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in the U.S. premiere of Co. Venture by the Brooklyn Touring Outfit that they … [Read more...]
Lives in Layers
Jonah Bokaer and Daniel Arsham bring their latest work to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House. Hooded figures swathed in pale clothing stand, isolated in pools of light, on the stage of the BAM Gilman Opera House, as part of BAM's Next Wave Festival. Their faces are hidden, and they’re frozen in diverse positions. In place when we enter the theater, they could be statues awaiting renovation. This … [Read more...]
Double Feature
Kate Weare Company and Liz Gerring Dance Company present New York seasons. It’s rare to see, on two adjoining nights, two hour-long dances by two gifted, highly original choreographers who were born and raised in California (a native Californian myself, I couldn’t resist throwing in that last commonality). The distinctive styles that Kate Weare and Liz Gerring have developed are nothing … [Read more...]