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...]
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...]
India in New York
Mark Morris curates "Sounds of India" for Lincoln Center's White Light Festival. Mark Morris has made many trips to India, beginning in 1981. I’ve only gone in my dreams. My fascination with the country’s dance styles came from seeing New York performances by visiting companies, dipping into epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, treating my dance history students to videos and master … [Read more...]
Taking Folk Dancing into Today’s World
Tina Croll + Company performs in New York with Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band. I haven’t seen Tina Croll’s choreography for quite a while, although she and I were early members of Dance Theater Workshop, and I’ve performed in several versions of From the Horse’s Mouth, a structured improvisation involving text and dance that she devised with Jamie Cunningham (there’s one coming up in honor … [Read more...]
From Palestine via Belgium
Badke, a Belgian-Palestinian dance production, comes to New York Live Arts. There is no light in New York Live Arts’ theater, where Badke is beginning. In the darkness, we hear a shout, a strangled cry, a high ululation. Somewhere in front of us, feet are stamping. A rhythmic treading develops and builds into more complicated heard patterns. Then the lights come on, and we see them: ten … [Read more...]
Dancing as the Leaves Fall
Fall for Dance returns to New York City Center for the eleventh time. Every autumn, as the leaves change color and begin to consider falling, Fall for Dance defines the verb differently: New Yorkers and savvy visitors buy bargain-price tickets and fall in love with dance—or at least with some of the twenty companies, small ensembles, pairs, and soloists who fill five mixed-bill programs at … [Read more...]
Dreaming a Never-Stopping Dance
The Seán Curran Company brings East and West together at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater. As you enter the BAM Harvey to see the Seán Curran Company’s Dream’d in a Dream, you not only glimpse an embodiment of the title, you begin to enter another kingdom. Not since Peter Brooks’ stunning production of the Sanscrit epic The Mahabharata introduced New Yorkers to the tactfully … [Read more...]
Styles and People Meet and Merge
For a number of years, Cherylyn Lavagnino has been working to bring together in her choreography elements that interest her deeply: the classical vocabulary that she excelled in during her days as a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet and that she teaches at NYU-Tisch School of the Arts; the modern dance that she also trained in and performed; and her feelings about society and political unrest. … [Read more...]
Fire and Ice: Both Burn
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at New York's City Center. The members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater have always been able to do practically anything a choreographer might ask of them: thrust their legs astonishingly high, spin like tops, act sassy or sexy, and dance with an ardor that burns across the footlights. But it’s always exciting to see how they … [Read more...]
Pacific Rim Get-together
The Asia Pacific Dance Festival in Hawaii and the Prince Lot Hula Festival Flowers everywhere. On trees and the ground beneath them. On shirts. Around necks. And, I like to think, blossoming in the minds of those attending the Asia Pacific Dance Festival at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Co-produced by the University’s Outreach College and the East-West Center Arts Program, the biennial … [Read more...]