Tere O'Connor Dance appears at the Joyce Theater in the second week of NY Quadrille. It’s no secret that Tere O’Connor wants the dances he makes to be about themselves. He reveals this on his website, in his program notes, and in interviews. He puts it more eloquently than I can, stating that over his decades-long immersion in dance, “I’ve discovered that traits such as inference, essence, … [Read more...]
City Flock
Jennifer Monson/iLAND performs in tow in St. Mark's Church. Improvised dance performances, however they are structured, have something in common. Performers keep a sharp eye out for one another, whether they’re moved to join a comrade, pursue a solitary investigation, instigate a change, or draw on some prearranged material. Sitting in St. Mark’s Church watching Danspace Project’s … [Read more...]
Enter The Men
10 Hairy Legs presents work by four choreographers at New York Live Arts. There’s a problem. Well, not much of one. Randy James gave the name 10 Hairy Legs to the all-male company he founded in 2012 . I counted twelve legs (and won’t debate the hairiness quotient). Obviously, I don’t recommend a name change, but I bring it up because I wish that the program I saw at New York Live Arts … [Read more...]
You Are Not Alone
Jane Comfort and Company premieres You Are Here at The Kitchen Jane Comfort has a formidable history as one who attacks with an intellectual cleaver subjects that most choreographers avoid: government policies, sanctioned torture, public apathy, gender stereotypes, beauty contests, talent shows. She deconstructed Shakespeare (Cliff Notes Macbeth, 1980) and Tennessee Williams (Faith Healing, … [Read more...]
Stories Only Dance Can Tell
Juliette Mapp and Beth Gill present brave new works in New York. Once in a while you go to a dance performance and think you’re in a mysterious world, whose inhabitants are familiar to you. . .and yet. . .not. You think about them, ask yourself questions. Then you try to stop asking questions and just watch what they’re doing. That’s how I felt during two recent, deeply absorbing works: … [Read more...]
Dancing in Places
PLATFORM 2016: A Body in Places (February 17-March 23). Did you happen to see Eiko in the summer of 2014 when she danced in Fukushima, Japan, the site of the fallible nuclear plant damaged in the 2011 earthquake and the terrible consequences to the people and the territory around it? Or on Governor’s Island that same summer? Did you see her in Valparaiso, Chile this past January? Maybe you … [Read more...]
Tangling, Tiptoeing Through Mysteries
Donna Uchizono premieres a new work at Gibney Dance's Agnes Varis Performance Center. “Donna Uchizono: Woman of Mystery.” Does that sound about right? No, it’s too much of a cliché to apply to a choreographer whose next step you can never anticipate and whose every new work adjusts your perceptions. Her 1995 Drinking Ivy, for instance, began with Levi Gonzalez standing alone at the rear of … [Read more...]
Three Veteran Adventurer-Choreographers Get Together
First time I’ve been to JACK, where Neil Greenberg, Yvonne Meier, and Jennifer Monson are sharing a program. The Brooklyn space reminds me of the original Dance Theater Workshop of the 1960s, when it sprang up in Jeff Duncan’s loft at 215 West 20th Street in Manhattan. Enough chairs for 50 or so spectators. Two small curtained dressing areas at one end. Two restrooms at the opposite end of the … [Read more...]
What Do We See and How Do We See It?
Danspace St. Mark's presents Moriah Evans's "Social Dance 9-12: Encounter." Leaving St. Mark’s Church after seeing Danspace Project’s presentation of Moriah Evans’s Social Dance 9-12: Encounter, I had a surprising thought about the experience: “This is so non-interesting that it’s interesting.” Then I spent the bus trip home wondering what I meant by that. Note that I didn’t think the … [Read more...]
The Beautiful Complications of Simplicity
Brian Brooks Moving Company brings new and old works to the Joyce Theater If I were asked to put choreographer Brian Brooks into a category, I’d have to coin a term: maximinimalist. His works are economical in terms of material and/or structure, but enriched into expressiveness by the ways in which he builds them. Take his 2010 Motor, which made an unexpected appearance on Brian Brooks … [Read more...]