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...]
Tracking Everyday Mysteries
RoseAnne Spradlin's X at New York Live Arts, January 13 and 14. Is this dance I’m looking at boring? More graciously put: am I bored? Etymology kicks in: do I feel as if something is being bored into my brain? I don’t deal with this issue while watching RoseAnne Spradlin’s compelling X at New York Live Arts. Well, maybe I do, briefly, since I notice that, near the end, I am uncrossing and … [Read more...]
Touched by a Virtual Hand
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...]
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...]