Pina Bausch’s last work, created in the six months before her death in June 2009, takes its title from a line in a song by the Chilean singer Violeta Parra, who committed suicide in 1967. The dance is called . . .como el mosguito en la piedra ay si, si, si. . . . , and the name of the song is Volver a los 17. What is it that makes us feel 17 again? In the end the song’s refrain, with its … [Read more...]
There’s No Problem Like Maria
So long, Fräulein Maria. Also farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. Not au revoir, but (gulp) adieu. I’m not talking about the heroine played by Julie Andrews in the film based on the Broadway show, The Sound of Music; I refer to Doug Elkins’s fabulously funny and adorable, gender-corkscrewing take on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beloved creation. Fräulein Maria’s touring days are done. It will … [Read more...]
Does My Beginning Match Your Ending?
Ever since the 1970s, David Gordon has been educating us into seeing that there are always two sides to everything (perhaps simultaneously), that repetition can reveal change, that words are devious game-players, and that you could be your own grandma. In his dance-theater works, where process and product often dance in lockstep, a performer may comment on what she/he—or another performer—is … [Read more...]
Jump for Mother Ann’s Love
What fascinates people about the Shakers—members of religious communities that settled in New England in the late 18th century, proselytized, expanded, and began to wither a hundred or so years later? We marvel at the austerely beautiful furniture they made, their ingenuity, and the fact that they considered drawing, singing, and dancing gifts from God that were to be practiced freely and … [Read more...]
Wandering Down Memory Lane
William Forsythe is an innovator. I doubt that fact is even up for debate among those who adore his work, those who loathe it, and those who simply scratch their heads over it. His post post-Balanchine ballets, his installations, his recent theater pieces, and his 2004 computer app, Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye, have influenced choreographers, performers, … [Read more...]
Bloodless Bacchanale
How does a choreographer tell a story in dance without telling a story? This question hangs over Luca Veggetti’s take on Euripides’ The Bacchae for Morphoses. The company co-founded by Christopher Wheeldon and Lourdes Lopez has, since Wheeldon’s departure, reconfigured itself as a pick-up ensemble whose profile changes yearly with a new resident artistic director and new dancers. Veggetti’s … [Read more...]
To Hell and Back
To be and not to be. That is a different question. It hovers above Big Dance Theater’s The Supernatural Wife, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar’s absorbing re-envisioning of the myth behind Euripedes’ Alkestis. Already seen in Europe and appearing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’ Next Wave Festival in November, the work’s U.S. premiere took place in Jacob’s Pillow’s Doris Duke Studio Theater from … [Read more...]