New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center, April 30 through June 9 In the Spring of 1988, the New York City Ballet put on an American Music Festival. George Balanchine had been dead for five years, and the two Ballet Masters in Chief, Peter Martins and Jerome Robbins, commissioned enough new ballets to keep dancers, guest choreographers, and resident choreographers rushing in and out of the … [Read more...]
A Change in the Wind
Tamar Rogoff’s Summer’s Different in La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart’s Theater, April 24 through May 12 A family’s summer day on the beach, what could be finer? Of course, someone might get sunburned, someone might drop her hot dog in the sand, someone might swim out a little too far. There could be bickering. Tears saltier than usual could be shed. But still. . .a cloudless sky, blue waves. … [Read more...]
Awaken to Life!
Stephen Petronio Company at the Joyce Theater, April 30 through May 5, 2013 Over a hundred black-clad members of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City form a V around the corner of the Joyce Theater—some on 19th Street, some on 8th Avenue; over a hundred pairs of eyes focus on composer Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott), who, shielded by a parasol, is playing guitar alongside trumpeter C.J. … [Read more...]
Journeying Along Interior Trails
Souleyman Badolo and Cynthia Oliver at New York Live Arts, April 25 through 27 At one point in Suleymane Badolo’s new solo, Barack, on the opening night of his season at New York Live Arts, Badolo dances with his back to the audience, clapping his hands together vigorously; when he stops, from the audience comes a small-voiced echo of his action (maybe two pairs of hands clapping) that … [Read more...]
Both Sides Now
Vicky Shick’s Everything You See. Presented by Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, April 18 through 20. Imagine a richly busy world in which everyone is mostly at peace with everyone else, and all are serious about their work. Then think about that work. It’s unusual. The inhabitants swing their bodies and limbs into big, sweeping movements, but their patterns also incorporate small, … [Read more...]
Life Eats On
Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Baryshnikov Arts Center, April 18 and 19, 2013 Anyone who has ever felt fragile or off balance might be heartened by Rosie Herrera’s Dining Alone. Here’s one of many memorable passages. A woman (Ivonne Batanero) holds a stack of white dinner plates; a man (Liony Garcia), crouching beside her, takes the plates, one by one, from the pile and places them on the … [Read more...]
Wild at Heart, Sometimes
Summation Dance, BAM Fishman Space, April 11 through 13. What’s not to love? That is, if you—like me—are easily entranced by the combination of formal purity and weirdness. When the lights come on in the black box of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Fishman Space to signal the beginning of Sumi Clements’s Shift, three women stand, separated from each other and staring through us. It’s how … [Read more...]
For Eyes and Ears
Mark Morris Dance Group. James and Martha Duffy Performance Space, Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn, New York. April 3 through 14. You can’t predict much about a dance by Mark Morris. There’s no doubt that he responds to music and —with love and respect—choreographs that response into what he hears. He acknowledges with great sensitivity a composer’s tempi and structures and atmosphere, … [Read more...]
No Words
Bill T. Jones is a taking a holiday from the spoken word. The last time he did that may have been in 1992. Unlike his Serenade/The Proposition (2008), Fondly Do We Hope...Fervently Do We Pray (2009), and Story/Time (2011), none of those on view during the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s season at the Joyce Theater (March 26 through April 7) makes use of text. None of them presents a view … [Read more...]
Shining Up the Past
New York Theatre Ballet’s name says more about it than its location. Not often do you see “theatre” spelled that way these days (American Ballet Theatre is one of the exceptions), but once it was the norm. There’s something winningly and intelligently nostalgic about artistic director Diana Byer's choices of repertory for the small company that she founded in 1976. Byer has an unerring eye for … [Read more...]